Finding Artifacts is Not ArchaeologyFew people may believe this, but my most exciting discoveries have all come in the library, long after the diving was over. It was perhaps half a year after the conclusion of the Cape Gelidonya excavation before I had the first inkling that we had excavated a Near Eastern rather than a Mycenaean ship. The notion first came to me when I was studying the ancient merchant's pan-balance weights, which proved to be based on Near Eastern weight standards. This led to further library research that later rewrote part of Bronze Age history. I could repeat this story many times. Finding artifacts is not archaeology.
interview of George Bass
July/August 2003
Archaeology magazine
In this chapter the author used some really difficult math to describe how the Makers struck and restruck various flint tools at a site that he dug. The whole thing came down to they made tools and they resharpened them and some were left handed.