Tonight's lecture was by Gunnar, a German professor.
Basically there are two things we will find: pottery and walls. The pottery we will take out, the walls will stay or be deconstructed (after being photographed) in order to dig further. We systematically destroy sites.
Archaeology is a new field, having only been invented in the 18th century and fine tuned since. In the beginning they were only interested in "pretty" stuff, not everyday items. That changed in the 19th century. By 1914 people realized there is value in the ordinary, too.
Why study pottery?
1) We find large quantities of it. Since 6000 BCE people used pots, even ordinary people. It gives context to how a large quantity of people lived.
2) It breaks easily, so people replace it with some frequency. Most often it is not repaired (Super Glue had not been invented yet), though at least one example of a repair job in antiquity has been found. It turned into garbage and therefore represents a small time in history.
3) The sherds are strong enough to survive. (Still learning difference between shards and sherds, shards seem to be for glass and metal, sherds for pottery).
4) As it was replaced, new techniques are used. Similar to automobile styles today.
We were reminded it is important to collect it all, and important to wash it all. Keep our eyes out for tablets and other more exciting finds -- they do exist.
With the right pieces, we can reconstruct the vessels since at this time they were symmetrical.
There was more to the lecture, and I did take notes, but the above are my takeaways. That and beer steins last the shortest amount of time and that giant container holding grains that sits in the corner and never moves lasts the longest.
Experts can date a piece that is thousands of years old within 50 years if he does his job right.
Hard to find things such as leather and wood because they don't last as long as pottery.
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