| Entry: | After nearly one week -- what has gone by quickly in retrospect yet seems like too long a time -- we're nearly done excavating U.30300 in B.43. This will be the first unit that I close, as I've been on it since Agata and I first began working in B.43 last Tuesday. All that remains is to excavate the make-up layer in the SE corner.
Exciting finds from this unit number two, namely a cluster of four clay balls (center) and the more recently discovered (in fact, discovered today) outline of what appears to be a bin (NE corner). However, despite clearing the make-up layer around the bin, the outline currently shows a semi-circle rather than a closed region.
Whenever one comes upon some curious find, something as described above, say, it's tempting to convery a form of "Good job!" Yet, I think this kind of praise is misplaced, for unlike discoveries in physics or mathematics (which, in many cases, no doubt involve considerable luck), finding an artefact (in archaeology) seems almost entirely dependant on luck, provided some basic excavation skill. Coming from the physics and mathematics perspective, it's odd to me that discoveries don't correlate directly with skill.
To be a bit more thorough though, discoveries in particle physics and observational (survey) astronomy seem to fall under a category very similar to that of discveries in archaeology. Though a bit more skill is invovled in operating a telescope to a high degree of precision, and likewise with operating a particle accelerator, discoveries in these fields are based more on luck than in the more theoretical fields, mathematics and theoretical physics, for example. In this sense, I would liken theoretical sciences to archaeological interpretation and applied sciences to excavation. |
