Better Archeology FAQ

Craft a brush (iron is the basic tier), then look for Suspicious Dirt and Fossiliferous Dirt in your world. Brush these blocks to unearth artifact shards, fossil pieces, and other archaeology loot.

Suspicious Dirt generates in archaeology-friendly spots similar to vanilla suspicious sand and gravel, while Fossiliferous Dirt is tied to fossil dig sites. Bring a brush and right-click the block repeatedly until it crumbles and drops its loot.

Take them to the Archeology Table and restore them into complete artifacts. The table is the main workstation for cleaning and reassembling shards you dig up.

Fossils come in separate Skull and Body pieces for each creature (chicken, creeper, guardian, ocelot, sheep). Combine the matching skull and body to form the complete fossil.

Higher-tier brushes are faster and/or more durable than the iron brush. Use the cheapest brush you can afford early and upgrade once you're excavating a lot.

Brushes are tools, so repair them the same way you'd repair other tools of their material (anvil or crafting grid with the matching material). Keep a spare on long dig trips.

Place the Archeology Table and open it to restore artifact shards into finished artifacts. It's the dedicated station for this mod's shard-restoration process.

Rusty Bombs are explosive mobs/blocks you'll encounter around excavation sites, and Evoker Traps are trap blocks that trigger when disturbed. Approach dig sites carefully, disarm or avoid them before brushing nearby blocks.

Rotten Logs, Planks, Slabs, Stairs, Fences, Fence Gates, Doors, Trapdoors, and Pressure Plates form a full decorative wood set. They're great for ruined, overgrown, or abandoned builds.

It's a content mod adding blocks, items, and a few mobs, so it generally plays fine alongside other mods and shouldn't noticeably affect performance. If you run many worldgen mods, expect the usual chunk-generation cost from extra dig sites.

It expands on Minecraft's archaeology mechanics with new artifacts, fossils, structures, and blocks to discover while exploring. It also adds an Archeology Table for analyzing finds and artifact-based enchantments.

It adds items like artifact shards, unidentified artifacts, brushes (iron, diamond, and netherite), totems, a music disc, and a rusty bomb. It also adds fossil pieces such as skulls and bodies for chickens, creepers, guardians, ocelots, sheep, villagers, and wolves.

It adds blocks including the archeology table, ancient vases, suspicious dirt and suspicious red sand, fossiliferous dirt, chiseled bone block, and a full set of rotten wood blocks. It also adds cracked mud bricks and infested mud bricks.

It adds four enchantments: Penetrating Strike, Soaring Winds, Tunneling, and Kaboom?. Penetrating Strike partially ignores Protection-type armor effects, Soaring Winds gives an initial Elytra thrust, and Tunneling breaks the block below the targeted block.

The mod adds one mob, the Rusty Bomb. It also features an Archeologist NPC that trades relics, artifacts, and expedition-related items for emeralds.

It supports Minecraft 1.21.10, 1.21.11, 26.1, 26.1.1, 26.1.2, and 26.2.

It is available for Fabric, Forge, and NeoForge.

The Archeology Table is a workbench that analyzes Unidentified Artifacts using a brush. It outputs Identified Artifacts that act as consumable catalysts for ancient-style enchantments.

Artifact Shards are found by breaking pots or brushing suspicious sand. Unidentified Artifacts are resolved into Identified Artifacts at the Archeology Table, and those can be applied to equipment, for example via an anvil.

Yes, the mod has config options including brush tick rates, fossil effect toggles, totem settings like growth radius and radiance damage, and enchantment settings for Penetrating Strike and Soaring Winds.