Seeing the Artifact
In the physical world, a trowel is a piece of steel. In the digital world, the Trowel is a mental framework. To the untrained eye, the internet is a flat surface of current information. To the digital archaeologist equipped with the Trowel, that surface reveals its cracks, layers, and buried structures.
The Trowel allows the practitioner to scrape away the "User Interface" to find the "Data Structure." It is the act of looking past what a file *does* to see what it *is*. Whether using a Hex Editor or a simple "View Source" command, the Trowel is the instrument of first contact.
Field Notes
The first rule of the Trowel: Don't break what you find. Delicate excavation means preserving the metadata. Moving a file carelessly can change its "Date Last Modified" timestamp—effectively destroying its archaeological context. A good trowel is sharp enough to reveal detail but light enough to leave the history intact.