Artifact hunting guide (and worms/fishing chest behaviour)

This is more of an overview than a guide. It contains all the information I could find in forum posts, online forums, reddit, the stardew valley wiki, and personal experience. It will list all the ways of finding your artifacts, and suggests what ways are best to deal with a certain artifact. Aside from that, it also tells how luck can influence your artifact hunting, how fishing treasure chests behave and how worms behave.

General rules about treasure hunting

WARNING: WIth the update that allows different farm types, there might be changes. For example, certain artifacts can now be found on the farm as well.

LUCK INFORMATION
- Luck will NOT affect what you will get from worms or from geodes.
- Luck will NOT affect your chance to get (better) loot from digging up dirt in the mines or from killing monsters.
- Luck will increase the chance you will get treasure chests with fishing, but it will NOT affect what is *in* the treasure chest. (except for the strange dolls, whose drop rate increases with luck)

FISHING CHESTS
- There is a 15% chance to get a treasure chest while fishing, 15% more for the pirate perk and 15% more for treasure bobber. Luck will add a little bit more chance.
- The location of your fishing does not matter at all. As long as you're fishing for actual fish, and not trash or plants, you always have the same chances for artifacts.

WORM MECHANICS
- Digging on the overworld will NOT yield artifacts. Not on the beach, not anywhere else. Only digging on the worm tiles will yield artifacts.
- If there are less than 2 worms in a single area, the game will try to spawn 2 extra worms in that area, at the START of the day, in a random location. If the random location is not dirt, too bad. Worm disappears. No worm spawn.
- In winter, the number is 5 instead of 2, and the location is good as long as it's a blank snow tile (both deep snow and "path snow" are ok)
- So the maximum number of worms in an area is 3 worms (2 + 1) in most seasons, and 9 (4 + 5) in winter.
- Any worm that is not dug up will remain and have different treasure the next day, or there is a 15% chance it will disappear instead.
- So the best way to find worm treasure is to go to the worms at the start of the day, see if they have what you want. If not, restart the day and leave them be so they can have new treasure tomorrow.
- Restarting the same day will not change anything about the worms. It's generated before the game saves your progress.
- The secret forest and the normal forest count as the same area. Aything that drops in one drops in the other.

EDIT: Ancient Doll and Bone Flute can also be found in fishing chests.

Explanation:
Most of the table explains itself, I would say. However, there are some things that must be noted.
- The different geode types drop different artifacts. Please note that omni geodes are your best bet at getting all of them. If you're not getting it, try other geode types.
- All artifacts have an equal chance to show up in the fishing treasure chest (about 1 in 600). "Common" means they have ten times the chance (about 1 in 60), and "Luck" is ONLY for the strange dolls, whose drop rates can be increased by luck (daily and food). Their base drop rate is about 1 in 1200.
- I could not find the exact chance of finding items while digging in the mines (the wiki isn't reliable on that aspect). However, I know that some artifacts are very common and some are not very common, so I added this into the table under rare, normal and high chance to find.
- The wiki states that de Dinosaur Egg can be found while digging in mines. However, in ALL the online posts I read, everyone got their egg from worms or from fishing chests. I don't know if it can actually be found in the mines.

EDIT: Link to spreadsheet (on google drive). Please note that google disrupts the formatting so it will look a bit messed up. I'm sorry. Please complain to google if there are any issues (yeah, I know that it's useless).

(sorry no more sharing the sheet. I changed to "auto share to all that have the link" but steam didn't like me to link anything from google docs anymore)

[craftylaracroft]

What do they mean by Treasure Hunter; just got the award or notice? There are mounds of dirt all over but you can't dig them up.

[Dunuin]

I found my first amphibian fossil day 9 winter year 4 at an artifact spot in the mountains (v1.4.1).
Now is jist the dino egg missing.

[Tristan]

ADDITIONAL SPOT NOT ON THE CHART. I've been trying on and off for years to get the dinosaur egg and the skeletal hand but got very bad RNG. I DID get the dinosaur egg by fishing and getting treasure chests on days where my luck was good, I ate luck enhancing food, and had the treasure chest charm all to increase my chance of getting a chest. BUT I also got the skeletal hand from digging an artifact spot above your farm in the back woods shortcut to Robin's house. I read that that was possible years ago but there wasn't enough backing it up for me to try. So I just wanted people to know that in addition to the beach the backwoods spot ALSO has the skeletal hand. And with that I am free of the museum. But all in all awesome chart saved me from wasting my time doing the wrong things in wrong spots for other artifacts.

[kkorshaven]

I found a dinosaur egg in the quarry, I do not remember if it was an artifact spot or in a rock

[Elkian Lionblood]

@Turtle Boy: The Living on the Land or w/e TV program recommends clearing weeds, stones, and branches in wild areas to allow more room for forage - it's not impossible that the Artifact Tiles also try to pop up under debris.

[Frick]

I'd like to say worms apear more when there's less grass and debris around that's why you can get alot of stuff on winter because of all the grass dying.

[Painge]

I got Skeletal Hand from the area next to the bus stop behind the farm.

[Hangy]

Apparently, I am blind. Cheers :)

[Sunwave]

Check the note under the Excel screenshot. That has been there since 2 days after I uploaded the guide. ;)

[Hangy]

Pretty sure i have gotten the Bone Flute from fishing... twice so far on this playthrough. Possible I am totally wrong, but I don't think so.