As opposed to gamer logic which is muck about with the bloody thing until something unexpected (and often regrettable) happens.

Nice to see genuine archeological techniques are being applied rather than treasure hunter techniques.

Thanks! My concept was somewhere between archeology and electronics. Apparently, it's how conductivity testers work-- pushing tiny amounts of power through a circuit to explore its internal pathways without damaging it.

My brother has his archeology degree and back when he was taking courses he was informed that the Archeologist's best allies were brush and the dental pick, alluding to the intense detail work studying sites and artifacts. He mentioned that his teacher was full of anecdotes of how often old artifacts were mislabeled and completely misunderstood by treasure-hunting techniques of old.
Of course there were other anecdotes that indicated how often even modern techniques could get something wrong. One fellow who was examining and reassembling one of the dead sea scrolls spent days agonizing over one tiny piece until he realised it was just an errant piece of tobacco leaf that somehow got in with the pieces.

Maybe lizards feel the same way digging through artifacts that were catalogued by earlier generations.