What to Do If You Make an Archaeological Find (and Why)

It sounds unlikely that you will stumble across a priceless ancient artefact but lots of people do. If you care about it - or even if your main concern is to profit from your find - there are certain do's and don'ts.

Don't: pick it up!

There are lots of good reasons to leave things where you find them. The most obvious is that some artefacts are fragile and you might find yourself with a fistful of fragments.

However, there are more important reasons for leaving things be. Although individual objects can provide a great deal of information, generally speaking, artefacts are meaningful in relation to other artefacts and features. As with antiques, provenance is all-important.

To give a one example, a skeleton with a stone arrowhead lying among the ribs might be key evidence that the individual died as a result of being shot with an arrow. If you were to remove the arrowhead, it might be possible to deduce from marks on the skeleton that the individual had died an unnatural death and perhaps even to identify the cause. (Or maybe not...). But the arrowhead, removed from its context, is largely meaningless. If you find a cache of silver, archaeologists may be able to tell from the surrounding soil and the pattern that the items lie in whether it was carefully buried, or buried in a hurry, or dropped and covered naturally. It's always best to wait for the professionals.

Even if it seems to be an isolated object lying about, you never know what's beneath. That doesn't mean you should have a little dig around. For one thing, in most countries that qualifies as 'excavation' - usually illegal without a licence.

Do: record your find.

If you have a camera, take a photograph, using a coin or pen as a scale. If you're in a remote area, take shots that will locate it in the landscape and allow it to be found again. Also, inspect the surrounding area for other objects. While people crowd around to look at the find it's entirely possible that other archaeological evidence is being crushed beneath their feet.

It's best to leave things where they are and if it's exposed (perhaps it's on a path where the next person will pick it up if you don't). Sometimes it's necessary to remove objects, if they are in danger of being destroyed. There are rights and wrongs here too:

Don't: clean it. Materials adhering to artefacts can be informative. For example, what looks like muck can be resin used to mount a stone artefact into a handle. More importantly, that resin can potentially be dated, whereas a stone tool on its own cannot. Blood, food residues still sticking to a pot fragment and traces of decorative paint can all easily be destroyed forever by rubbing or washing.

Don't: wrap it in organic material. Charcoal, wood, bone and other materials can be radiocarbon-dated by measuring the amount of carbon they contain. Wrapping these finds in organic materials, such as paper, tissue or oil-based plastics can contaminate the item with younger carbon and skew any subsequent dating analysis. Ideally, it should be wrapped in foil, though that may not always be possible.

Do: contact an expert. That could be your local museum, heritage agency or university archaeology department. For suspected human bones, inform the police too - you never know. Archaeologists appreciate the help of the public and will usually do their utmost to keep you involved - and it it's a major find, to give credit where it's due!