Archaeology is being activated in the latest World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta build. As such, we’ve opened up a Professions forum for players to leave feedback about this and other professions.

Players can learn Archaeology in order to search for ancient artifacts around the world to advance their Archaeology skill and create unique new items. To recover artifacts, you need to collect artifact fragments. Fragments are found in dig sites visible on your map. When you reach a dig site, use the Survey ability. Your survey tool will indicate the approximate direction and distance to the cache of fragments. You can collect fragments three times in a dig site before you need to move to a new dig site. Once you have enough fragments, you can solve an artifact to learn a little more about Azeroth’s past. Happy hunting!

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Q u o t e:
my question is what if you and another player both arrive at a fragment, is it treated like a quest item, short respawn? or are you SOL for a while like say a frostchip or blood of heroes type deal?

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The fragments don't work like typical profession nodes. When you're searching and find one, you're the only one searching for that particular fragment. As Nooska said, you can sort of think of them as "phased" for you only. Another player would be able to see that you're clearly looking for a fragment, but their Survey ability is not going to lead them to the same fragment.

I hope that clarifies things a bit. :)