Quick Facts

Storylines
Azerothian Archives To the Archives! Excavation 101 Your First Find Hands-On Experience Technoscrying 101 A Practical Test I Can See Through Time! Excavation: Riverbed Surveying the Riverbed The Body on the Banks Do Rites by Her Technoscrying: Observatory Attune to the Observer A Link to the Past A Window into the Future Nirobin and the Office Living History Lab Partners with a Squirrel A Research Thesis Worth Publishing Back to Headquarters! Finally, An Archivist! Excavation: Gaze of Neltharion Surveying the Tower Hidden in the Midden Antiquated Antics Excavation: Winglord's Perch Surveying the Cliffside The Cache in the Crag A Taste of the Past Technoscrying: Dragonskull Island The Fate of Scalecommander Abereth Without Honor The Hidden Hand Technoscrying: Igira's Watch The Tools of the Dragonkillers An Unlikely Proposal The Scale of it All Back to Headquarters! Again! Graduation Day Azerothian Archives - Excavation Sites Excavation: Riverbed Surveying the Riverbed The Body on the Banks Do Rites by Her Excavation: Gaze of Neltharion Surveying the Tower Hidden in the Midden Antiquated Antics Excavation: Winglord's Perch Surveying the Cliffside The Cache in the Crag A Taste of the Past Excavation: Back to Eadweard!

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by Hyphie

One of the items can bug, it will show 100% but you don't have a loot option, it may take multiple attempts on it.

I got it by leaving the 1st one at 100% on the south side of the river, went to the north west and completed that one, went back and was able to loot it after dropping the totem a 2nd time.

Hopefully this will be fixed to not have to do it this way

Comment by woofpuppy

May the people who designed these new quests have lifetime crotch fleas.

Comment by Mepoc

"Let's rework archaeology and make it needlessly complicated so it won't work and so players will be stuck endlessly repeating the process until through chance the quest maybe possibly perhaps completes"
- Blizzard Devs, January 2024

Comment by tvath

For those like me who aren't sure what to do: Go across the river to the other side and look for brown swirling mini-tornadoes on the ground. Set down your totem near a tornado and click it to empower the elemental to wash away the dirt while you dig at the item.

Comment by boozymacadam

I thought this new mechanic was supposed to be Archaeology 2.0. They missed the mark big time. Who was the clown that designed the mechanic? Find the miniscule object that you can click on but only if you zoom your camera ALL the in. Then and only then will you maybe see it. A flogging is in order for this chicanery!

Comment by Porcelina333

Confused? You drop the totem and click it just to expose the artifact. Then you click it again to push the indicator toward the water icon. While it's in the middle section, you have to move over and use the dig icon on the artifact itself, NOT the piles of dirt that are glowing yellow making you think that's what you are supposed to be digging on. You only dig on the piles of dirt to push the indicator bar back to the middle if it goes too far toward water.

I would rather be doing version 1 archaeology. This mechanic is super annoying and not fun at all.

Comment by LdyLarke

If you somehow no longer have a totem to place, log out to character select screen and back. I had no totem and that's how I got it to show up again. sheesh

Comment by sohopixie

"Because archaeology is the most-beloved of WoW's signature 'mini-game' content, we have now IMPROVED it to be even LESS FUN and MORE AGGRAVATING than getting herpes and hemorrhoids simultaneously. ENJOY the suspense of whether or not you will have your totem, and THRILL as you run back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth to 'balance' elements that have no meaning whatsoever while you HOPE AGAINST HOPE that at some point your senseless quest will complete. Featuring NEW REWARDS that you will want so badly that you are willing to STICK PINS INTO YOUR EYEBALLS to secure them! This is just what the player base has been clamoring for!" --pretty sure i read exactly this on the dev forums

Comment by Kilrathi3

WHY i stopped doing archeology things 101

This is a reminder of why.
this is a 40 part chain and will eat many hours of your game time and give nothing worthy of your life lost to this mess.

the end quest posts showed me nothing of interest to bother getting past this one.

Comment by Famoriel1

This is how this miserable quest works:

1) Tell the questgiver that you are ready to start.
2) Locate a yellow dot and move to smoking pile of crap.
3) Use the quest item to summon the Water Schmuck.
4) Click the totem to make him reveal whatever crap you found.

If an Aggravated *!@# comes out, kill it and look for another smoking pile of crap.

5) Once you get a real good pile , click above the progress bar or use the interact button.

If it doesn't work, look at the other bar which is on the bottom. It needs to have its indicator in the center.

If it needs to be wetter, talk to your Water Schmuck.
If it needs to be drier, interact with a nearby pile of crud.

Rinse and repeat

Comment by Snowshoes

I really hate new quests.

For the first part, "Finds Unearthed" (you need 2)
Look on your minimap for a yellow dot. At that dot there will be a swirling brown mini-tornado. Click on the Archivist's Water Totem icon to summon a water elemental and a small interactive water totem on the ground nearby. Then you'll get a small progress bar that you have to keep "balanced" in order to unearth the fragments you need for the quest, the goal is to keep the little marker in the center of the progress bar (anywhere in the light brown tab, or 'safety zone', in the center), if the marker goes outside the light brown tab, you have to re-center it. One end of the progress bar is earth, the other end is water... if the marker goes towards the earth end, click on the water totem on the ground to move it back; if the marker goes towards the water end, click on one of the dirt piles on the ground to re-center it. The water or earth icon will start to flash to alert you as to which end is out of balance, so you can easily see if you need to use the water totem or dirt piles to re-balance the elements.

While the marker is centered in the light brown safety zone tab, there will be small artifact icons ON THE GROUND that you click on to excavate them. If your marker goes too far off center, the artifact icons will be non-interactive until you re-center it.

For the second part, "Major Find Unearthed"
There is a new yellow dot on your minimap, where you'll find a giant swirling pile of dirt. Drop your Archivist's Water Totem there to summon the little water elemental again, as well as the small interactive totem. Click on the totem and the water elemental will do its thing at the swirling dirt tornado. The quest completes, leaving behind a Ancient Centaur Corpse, and Roska will run over to you so you can turn in the quest.

Note: The totem wasn't interactive for me right away, so I don't know if it was bugged or it's an intentional design.

Comment by Nagoragama

Infuriating.

Links

Surveying the Riverbed

Speak with Roska to start the dig, then excavate artifacts from the riverbed.

	Tell Roska to start the dig (1)
	Finds Unearthed (2)
	Artifact Bunny 1 (1)
	Artifact Bunny 2 (1)
	Monster Bunny 1 (1)
	Monster Bunny 2 (1)
	Rock Bunny (1)
	Major Find Unearthed (1)

Provided item:

	Archivist's Water Totem (1)

Description

Hope you brought your boots, 'cause this is gonna be a wet one! This river carries artifacts down from the mountains, and they wash up here in the silt. The centaur have found loads of stuff here over the years. We're here to take a deeper look and see if there's anything interesting below the surface.

Completion

Rewards

You will receive:

Gains

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

See if you've already completed this by typing:

/run print(C_QuestLog.IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(75493))