One last thing to look at is that many of the items you create through Archeology are nothing more than vendor trash, but it is pricey vendor trash. While leveling archeology, without even paying attention, I collected about 120 gold worth of gray quality items in a few hours. No, it will never compete with farming Hardened Elementium Bars to make gold, but, hey, it all adds up, right.
Now that we have looked at why to level Archeology, let’s look at how.
First, go to your nearest trainer, and pick up the skill. Open your spell book, choose professions, and drag the Survey button onto a convenient slot on your action bars. Now, open your map (default-M key), and right click your mouse until you see the continent you are on (Kalimdor or Eastern Kingdoms, to start). Depending on your level, you will see up to four little shovel icons scattered around the continental map. If you zoom into the zone where one of the shovels is, you will see an area of that zone highlighted in red. Go there.
Once you are in the red area, click on the Survey tool. After a 2 second cast time, a telescope will appear to the left of your avatar, with a blinking light on top, which will be red, yellow or green. The orientation of the telescope tells you which direction to walk in, and the light tells you how far—red, very far, yellow, not so far, and green, pretty close. Think of it as playing warm and warmer; as you get home in on your target, the light tells you that you are getting warmer, well, by getting cooler. Eventually you unearth the archeology find you are seeking, and you right click on it to collect it.
In the early part of leveling your skill (up to skill level 300), you will get Dwarf, Night Elf, Troll, or Fossil artifact fragments, and occasionally a keystone for Dwarf, Night Elf or Troll projects. These keystones replace 12 fragments in some projects. If you open your professions Tab (default K key), you will see a list of projects you have in progress, with details of how may fragments you have and how many you need. If you click on one project, you will see a progress bar that shows the same information, and sometimes has a hexagonal box underneath the progress bar. Click on that hexagon to add a keystone (if you have one for that project type) to complete the project more quickly.
Once you have the needed fragments, you can click the solve button to complete the project. As your skill increases, you will get better and more complicated projects, that result in better items, including vanity pets, mounts, and the items mentioned above.
