Stratum.black Open reference

Glossary · Field

Surface find

An artifact picked up from the ground surface — a plowed field, an eroding bank, a creek bar — rather than dug.

An artifact picked up from the ground surface — a plowed field, an eroding bank, a creek bar — rather than dug. Surface collection on private land with permission is legal in every state; ARPA's arrowhead exemption covers only surface finds on federal land and not their sale.

Sources

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Surface find" (Glossary). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16. https://stratum.black/study/glossary/surface-find. Accessed 2026-09-21.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-surface-find,
  title        = {Surface find},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/glossary/surface-find}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Glossary article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.

Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial). As of 2026-09-16; Study pack 2026.09. Written by Stratum in our own words; the works cited are where the science lives, and none of their text is reproduced here.

Found an error? Write to drew@tyr.ac with the article id glossary:surface-find.

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