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Update: The careless cataloging at that Maya pyramid site undermines every discovery
During the recent season at Caracol, volunteers mislabeled dozens of ceramic fragments due to inadequate training. Now, associating those pieces with specific ritual contexts is nearly impossible, wasting years of fieldwork. How can we justify cutting corners on documentation when it erodes the very facts we seek to uncover?
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wyatt1341h ago
In last year's Journal of Field Archaeology, a paper detailed the long-term costs of poor artifact tracking at Copán. Researchers wasted years reconciling databases because early teams used inconsistent numbering systems. Your Caracol example shows how one season's negligence can invalidate decades of fieldwork. Adopting barcodes and mandatory photo logs is now a basic requirement, not some advanced technique. We must prioritize training volunteers to document meticulously from the first day on site. The artifact's context is what gives it meaning, and sloppy recording destroys that forever.
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