Comparing two excavation methods at Silchester changed my approach

Last summer I helped on a dig near Silchester where we tested the old grid troweling against the newer single-context recording. The grid method gave us more artifacts per hour but we lost track of which layer each piece came from. Single-context took twice as long but let us piece together a Roman drain's timeline that grid troweling would have wrecked. Anyone else switch methods after a messy site and just accepted the slower pace?

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stellanelson12d ago

You ever get that sinking feeling when you realize the pretty glass shard in your hand is now worthless? Cause that's what happened to us with grid troweling one season. Switched to single context after we muddled a whole medieval floor sequence, and yeah, it's slow as hell, but now I actually trust my notes. That drain timeline sounds like the kind of thing that makes the extra weeks worth it.