Watching a grad student brush dirt off a 1,500 year old pot in Cortez changed how I see my flower beds
I visited the Crow Canyon lab near Cortez, Colorado in March and a grad student showed me how they map every tiny fleck of bone and charcoal before touching a thing. She said context is the real discovery, the pot itself is just a bonus. I went home and pulled out six plastic bags of "arrowheads" my grandpa picked up in the 70s and realized I have no clue which field any of them came from. Now I write the date and spot on the bag before it goes in my pocket. Did your family collect stuff like this, and do you still know where it came from?