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Switched from dry brushing to wet screening for flint chips after a dig in Missouri
I used to just dry brush everything at the site, thinking it was faster. Then last year at a dig near St. Louis, the dirt caked some tiny microflakes and I missed a whole layer. Now I wet screen everything through a 1/8 inch mesh before bagging. It adds maybe 20 minutes per unit but I caught 30 more flakes that day alone. Anyone else run into this with sandy soil?
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morgan.jason14d ago
Got a buddy named Dan who swore by dry brushing for years. Used to brag he could spot a flake from twenty feet away. Last summer we were out near the Meramec River and he skipped the wet screen on a unit with sandy loam. His whole bag came back full of rocks that looked like chips at first glance. Back at the lab we wet everything he'd bagged and ninety percent of his "flakes" were just pebbles with dirt angles. @green.noah you're not missing tiny rocks, you're just calling them flakes like my man Dan did. Now he screens everything wet too, even in clay, and his numbers actually mean something.
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green.noah17d ago
Dry brush crew over here too, but I'm literally just missing tiny rocks and calling them flakes.
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Bought a bag labeled "fine eccentric gravel" once. Complete waste. Just 20 dollars for pebbles with a light dusting of mica. My buddy calls it ADHD gravel. I shake it, stare at it, still nothing. You're not alone. Most of my collection is just regular rocks with cool names stuck to them.
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