The bronze tools at the Field Museum are only 3% of what was dug up, and that number floored me

Wesley Clark · 2026-10-02T17:50:04.5396+00:00

I was at the Field Museum in Chicago two months ago reading the placard next to a Shang dynasty bronze axe, and it casually mentioned that less than 3% of the excavated items from that site were bronze. Everything else, the pottery, animal bones, shell fragments, got left behind or reburied because it wasn't fancy enough to display. So when we look at a dig, we're mostly looking at the metal, not the actual daily life. How do archaeologists decide what even gets kept when storage space runs out? Do any of you work on digs where the museum turns down material?

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The bronze tools at the Field Museum are only 3% of what was dug up, and that number floored me | Archaeology Discoveries - Topic Shares