Question about identifying pottery shards from a dig site near Tucson

I was sorting through a box of what looked like plain brown pottery fragments from a site near Tucson, and after three hours of getting nowhere, I tried holding each piece under a strong desk lamp at a low angle, which suddenly made the faintest fingerprint impressions and cord markings visible, so what other simple lighting tricks have you found for spotting details on artifacts?

2 comments

2 Comments

kevin_flores3d ago

Oh man, that low-angle light trick is a total game changer! I had the exact same thing happen with some boring looking bone fragments. I started using a cheap LED flashlight from the side in a dark room, and all these cut marks from tools just popped out. It felt like magic! Trying different colors of light can help too, like a warm light versus a cool white one, because sometimes the contrast picks up different stuff.

jana_davis903d ago

Ever try a black light? I was working with some plain looking stone tools and a cheap UV flashlight from a hardware store showed up old resin traces that were totally invisible in normal light, which was wild. Kevin_Flores is right about color too, a soft yellow light sometimes works better than harsh white for seeing texture on really worn ceramics.