It can happen--even in the course of a summer.  At my first field school in
1975, I jumped up and down, and let out a goodly whoop, at finding my first
mine ball (John McCarthy should remember this).  Well, we were at Belle
Grove, on the site of the Battle of Cedar Creek, and we proceeded to find
about one unfired mine ball per day.  I can't say I still get excited about
finding debitage, or plain whiteware sherds, or (more to the point of this
discussion), the opportunity to assess the 400th damaged-by-tank-training
farmstead on an Army post.  But, I still remember that mine ball.




At 10:51 AM 6/26/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Is it possible that archeologists, over a period of time, become calous, or
>numb, and get a "been-there-done-that" syndrome?  Do they lose the "fire"
>that once caused some excitement at the recovery of a square nail?
>
>BV
>