Shoutout to the BLM guy in Roswell who told me to stop digging with a shovel and start sifting

Ryan Anderson · 2026-10-07T17:05:04.036749+00:00

I always thought surface collecting was enough on a survey site outside Roswell. A BLM archaeologist pulled me aside and said I was missing 80 percent of the lithics by not sifting. I sifted a 1x1 meter unit for two days and pulled 47 flakes out of dirt I would have walked right past. Same spot, same soil, just a screen. My flake count tripled on that one test pit compared to my shovel-only units. Now I want to know if anyone else switched to dry sifting and saw a jump like that, or did I just get lucky with the spot?

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Shoutout to the BLM guy in Roswell who told me to stop digging with a shovel and start sifting | Archaeology Discoveries - Rigidtalk