How to complete [Fun for the Little Ones] with low Archaeology skill?

Question

I'm trying to complete the quest Fun for the Little Ones in order to get the Faire Favors achievement at the Darkmoon Faire. However, I had never levelled my Archaeology up until now, except for (apparently) a few points some years ago.

So first I levelled my archeology to 75 in Shadowmoon Valley, which was required to get the quest at all. Now that I got the quest however, it turns out I need 15 "Fossil Archaeology Fragments". It seems I already have 11, but I don't know how to gather the remaining 4.

I've tried several things:

• Go to Brann Bronzebeard in Pandaria to trade "Restored Artifact" for some fossil fragements. This requires a skill level of 600 though.
• Similar story for the Arakoa sales guy in Stormshield, Ashran.
• Read through Wowhead's Archeaology Guide.
• Check for any tooltips or explanation in game for the Archeaology profession window (which tells me little to nothing).
• Click around the World Map, check some of the starting zones in old Azeroth to see if there's dig sites there where I could go. (Perhaps I've overlooked it? Should there be some zone with dig sites? I do see dig sites in Shadownmoon Valley, Draenor, but no fossils pop up there.)
• Read a lot of comments on various Wowhead items (e.g. Black Trilobite fossil, as well as other sites like Wowpedia and WowDB. No dice.

For what it's worth, here's what my profession looks like in game, currently:

Help me out here, how does this work? Or am I stuck, do I need to level to 600 to be able to finish this?

Answer 1

The easiest way for a low level archaeologist to obtain Fossil fragments is to survey Fossil dig-sites. These dig-sites can be found in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.

If you check your world map, you will see four dig-sites scattered around on each continent. Because there are only four you'll need to know what to look for. You'll only see the dig site if you're looking at a continent or at the correct zone. On the continent level, you should be looking for small shovel icons, like these:

When zoomed out they're significantly less prominent, yet still visible:

The name of the dig-site will give a clue as to which fragments they contain.

Kalimdor is mostly made up of Night-Elf, Troll and Fossil, but also has Tol'vir if the site is in Uldum. Eastern Kingdoms is mostly made up of Dwarf, Troll and Fossil, with a few Nerubian and Night-Elf sites.

Once you deplete a dig-site, a new one will appear. You will have to keep doing this until a Fossil site appears and then you'll get your fragments.

The link here is a list of all dig-sites with their names and fragment types. Check it out and maybe you already have a fossil site up.

Answer 2

Archeology was first introduced into WoW when Deathwing shattered Azeroth. At this point you could buy something called a Master Flying License, a must for your Archeology Dig sites. To begin you need to know the areas that yield the proper fragments. Un'goro Crater, Tanaris, and even Desolace will have certain areas that are Archeology sites. The mini map will show up as an over lay red color. In order for you to gather these currency items you must use Survey. Survey shows up when you press K. This key can hotkey binded for easier use.

However, you will not find always find a currency item on the first try, this is where your telescope with a blinking light comes in. If the light is red it is further than 10m away from where the spyglass points. If this light is amber and slowly blinking, then your target is between 9m-5m away from where the spyglass points. If the light is green, then you are within 4m-2m of this where the spyglass points. Anything within 1-2m~ shows up as a fossilized footprint. You will then loot 4-6 fossils.