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That field school kid who kept pulling Roman nails out of a trench wall
I was volunteering at a dig in Gloucestershire two summers ago, and this college kid was assigned to clean up a section of trench wall before photos. He kept finding these iron nails sticking out and yanking them out with his bare hands. The site director caught him after the third one and just stood there quiet for a second, then said "those were holding the wall together for 1,800 years, mate." We spent the next hour re-setting all the disturbed layers. Has anyone else dealt with newcomers on site who get too enthusiastic with artifacts?
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mason.mary4mo ago
Last summer we had a guy on our crew in Suffolk who found a piece of Samian ware in a spoil heap and started trying to clean it with his pocket knife. I grabbed him by the wrist before he could do any real damage. What worked for me was just talking to him one on one during lunch, not yelling or making him feel stupid. I explained how delicate those fragments are and showed him a few pieces that got wrecked by bad handling. He actually turned out to be a decent volunteer after that, just needed someone to take five minutes instead of embarrassing him in front of everyone. The trick is catching them early and being patient, not just waiting for the site director to blow up at them.
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