19th May 2008, 05:42 PM
I have a WHS trowel, actually two. I've broken several marshaltowns on bricks and whatnot, but the WHS ones seem to last forever 
I don't think it's a matter of missing things. I definitely default to the usual method of doing desk based research on the area, followed by fieldwork in light of the results of the desk based inquiry. I think in South Carolina the physical attributes we're working with have so often been compromised and placed in secondary contexts that we don't have other options. In cases where you have little or no history documentation, or you're dealing with ephemeral things such as short term native american settlements (manifesting as a few pot sherds and nothing else), then I think the close interval shovel test data can be really useful.
My workmate who is collaborating with me on my current project has been slowly winning me over in terms of the value of such data. When I was actually in the field doing the work I felt a little mercenary, but when my workmate showed me how to manipulate the data we'd gathered I was surprised at what was visible. You could see houses, outbuildings, different activity areas, different site phases. Those things were of course completely invisible when you were standing on the site itself. I'm certainly wary of turning any site into swiss cheese, as it were, but if you have a high level of disturbance I think it's a reasonable alternative. If I had to chose between the two obviously it's better/more fun to have intact stratigraphy to look at, but in a pinch this method works better than I'd originally thought it would.
I don't think it's a matter of missing things. I definitely default to the usual method of doing desk based research on the area, followed by fieldwork in light of the results of the desk based inquiry. I think in South Carolina the physical attributes we're working with have so often been compromised and placed in secondary contexts that we don't have other options. In cases where you have little or no history documentation, or you're dealing with ephemeral things such as short term native american settlements (manifesting as a few pot sherds and nothing else), then I think the close interval shovel test data can be really useful.
My workmate who is collaborating with me on my current project has been slowly winning me over in terms of the value of such data. When I was actually in the field doing the work I felt a little mercenary, but when my workmate showed me how to manipulate the data we'd gathered I was surprised at what was visible. You could see houses, outbuildings, different activity areas, different site phases. Those things were of course completely invisible when you were standing on the site itself. I'm certainly wary of turning any site into swiss cheese, as it were, but if you have a high level of disturbance I think it's a reasonable alternative. If I had to chose between the two obviously it's better/more fun to have intact stratigraphy to look at, but in a pinch this method works better than I'd originally thought it would.