How to Dig Up the Past

People who are careless with shovels recently got told off. The teller-off was 72-year-old Clark Wissler, curator emeritus of anthropology at Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History. He was worried by the thought of how much is lost to science by amateur archeologists ignorantly gouging away after arrowheads or other subterranean souvenirs. He wrote an article about proper procedure for the March Natural History.

The proper archeologist is equipped for the most delicate digging and examinations with a small trowel, whisk broom, toothbrush, bellows and old fork--handy for cleaning out skulls. First the site is measured and mapped. Then the sod is stripped away and the soil is carefully peeled off, layer by layer, usually with trowels. Old holes, long since filled up, get special attention. They may show where houses stood, help toward determining the plan of a community. Dr. Wissler says: "To overlook them when digging is inexcusable. With practice they are easily dissected out." Other old holes may be trash pits--mines of information.

Ranking with these in interest are graves. Here again the amateur can do irreparable damage: "The successful removal of a skeleton often calls for unusual skill and an inordinate expenditure of time and patience. In damp ground bones may be so soft as to defy movement until hardened by drying or by special treatment with fixing solutions. An inexperienced digger may tear away a skeleton without being aware of its presence. Since the teeth are less likely to take on the color of the damp soil, a bungling amateur may report that he found no bones, merely a few teeth."

Dr. Wissler's central point seemed clear throughout--in case of likely findings, call a real archeologist.

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