What is your most valuable find? Rye (10)

Well, Rye, I must say I do get asked that question a lot so thank you for asking it on here!

In archaeology, the most ‘valuable find’ is not the one that comes with the highest price tag. You see, all the objects we find (especially the rare or interesting/unusual ones) go to museums and their monetary value is of little importance.

What makes a find valuable in archaeology very much depends on the archaeologist: some archaeologists swear by pottery, others by coins and metal finds or even seeds and environmental remains.

I am mostly interested in human remains and understanding more about how people lived in the past.

Many years ago, I was excavating a passage tomb in Ireland (like the one at Newgrange but much smaller; if you want to learn more about passage tombs, you can start by checking this link: https://www.newgrange.com/) and we found several burials associated with it. Although the bones were disturbed and badly preserved, we identified one skeleton that belonged to a younger individual, probably a teenager. I felt very lucky to work on this excavation and to me, it was an invaluable discovery: who was this young person? What had his/her life been like? What was life like, in general, 5000 years ago? I wish I could have met this person and heard their story.

And now I’ll return your question: what would you like to discover the most and why is it so valuable to you?