Archeology for Beginners is the 80th main story mission in Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2). This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of Archeology for Beginners Main Quest including all Gold Medals for 100% completion.
Archeology for Beginners is unlocked after completing A Rage Unleashed.
Quest Giver: Rains Fall
Chapter: 6
Region: New Hanover
Gold Medal Requirements:
- Recover the relics without being detected
- Recover the relics within 1 minute 30 seconds
Starting Location: Wapiti Indian Reservation, New Hanover
Talk to Rains Fall
Meet up with Rains Fall in the Wapiti Reservation, and ride with him to gather some herbs to help with your illness. Rains Fall will lead you to three locations, then stop to gather herbs. Wait for him on your horse until he’s ready to continue each time.
Eventually he will lead you to a sacred site, but he discovers that it has been burned and his sacred relics taken.
Use Eagle Eye to look around for clues as to who destroyed the site, and stole the Chanupa, a ceremonial pipe of great importance to Rains Fall and his people. Several items will emit a golden glow to highlight the clues.
There are a lot of flasks, bottles and signs of arson in the area. Keep examining the clues until Rains Fall calls you over.
Seeing a column of smoke on the horizon, Rains Fall asks you to look at the area below with your binoculars. You spot some extremely drunk soldiers in a camp, apparently those responsible for the theft and destruction.
- GOLD MEDAL: Recover the relics without being detected
- GOLD MEDAL: Recover the relics within 1 minute 30 seconds
The bad news is that this is a very hard gold medal to get, and with a lot of possibility of random error. To get down to the camp, infiltrate the camp, recover the relics and leave undetected will rely on you being able to ride your horse downhill at a gallop without attracting attention, dismount, get in and out of the camp without alerting the drunk soldiers or making any noise, then getting back to your horse and riding back to Rains Fall all within one minute and thirty seconds. The margin for error is remarkably slim, especially if you’re doing this on a replay.
First things first, grab your horse and get down that hill.
Rather than following the road, you’re going to want to go west straight down the hill on the south side of the hill, so that you will approach the camp from the southeast corner.
When you get close to the camp, swing to the north so that you are behind the patrolling soldier that goes around the camp in a counterclockwise circuit. Get off your horse at the edge of camp, and proceed in a crouch-walk.
Assuming that you haven’t yet triggered a rock slide to attract attention, start moving north until you can get into a position to enter the camp from the east side.
Ideally, what you’re waiting for is for the patrolling guard to start moving towards the north, and one of the two guards at the cookfire will get up and also move in that direction.
Then you move straight through the camp crouch-walking, careful not to disturb the passed out soldiers on the ground.
In the very middle of the camp just north of the cookfire, is a bundle that looks like a bedroll on the ground in front of a tent. Pick it up to recover the Chanupa and other sacred items.
Immediately turn around and crouch walk out of the camp the way you came in, and get back to your horse. The key is that you have to get back out of the camp before the soldier sitting on his bed in the tent to the north stands up and moves towards the center of camp. Once he starts moving towards the south, he will almost certainly see you leaving the camp. If this happens, you will want to restart your last checkpoint, and hope that you’ve managed to bank enough time.
Otherwise, if you make it out, get back on your horse and run up the hill back to Rains Fall as fast as your horse can go. Return the artifacts to him without killing anyone and he will reward you greatly for your deeds with the Owl Feather Trinket that reduces the drain speed of your cores. And if you do it quickly enough, hopefully with a gold medal as well. Good luck.
This finishes Archeology for Beginners main mission in Red Dead Redemption 2. Now the next quest Honor, Amongst Thieves starts.
Next Up: Honor, Amongst Thieves
For more Walkthroughs with all gold medals, check out the complete Red Dead Redemption 2 Story Walkthrough.
Screw this mission and that time limit. It’s not worth sitting through ten minutes of slow ass riding just to get another attempt at this crap.
You can retry from the checkpoint if you get spotted. I got it on the 3rd attempt. I’m with you I wasnt going to do all that setup again but I didnt have to.
This mission really spoke to me. Imagine being at the turn of the 20th century, you and your boys are up in the mountains and you realize some asshats went and stole your Chalupa. There’s no Taco bell around for miles, Rain Falls reaction was completely understandable and I felt for him
It also should be noted that, this is the way to get the Owl Feather trinket highly miss able, so don’t kill any of the soldiers
This mission is a lot easier than you make out. Fall off the cliff ahead of you, get up and run the road which will bear left until you see the rock face to the right of it, go into a crouch run as you run along it, bearing to the left to avoid rocks. The guard ahead will move right, just avoid the rocks and head into the camp still crouch running. The two guys at the camp fire will ignore you, go behind them and pick up the items. Escape exactly the same way, circling to the left to avoid the rocks, around to the right once you see the road. Someone will say “huh” as if you’ve been spotted, but you won’t be.
Restarting from the checkpoint after gathering the relics totally works for gold. I recovered them without getting caught in the actual camp, but got caught when a soldier was investigating the area of the slope I slid down before I sneaked into camp. I didn’t want to sit through the 7 or 8 minute horse ride so I just decided to cut my losses and abandon the mission and continue at the checkpoint while I was getting shot. They spawned me at the bottom of the winding path with one soldier midway up, I just crouch ran to the right and went up the path. After the mission was over with, it gave me the Gold Medal.
“Yeah”‘s strategy in their comment above worked for me. I restarted the checkpoint about 20 times before circling around from the north (ie the right from where you begin) and going around in a fairly large arc. One of the two guys in the camp always detected something, but never me. I let the next objective appear “Return to Rains Fall” and checked the objectives and I had completed the time one. I restarted the new checkpoint and slowly just walked my way up the path on the second attempt (first time I was apparently detected and didn’t want to leave it to chance.) It didn’t give me an indication that I had succeeded at that point but once I finished the mission I got the gold.
It is possible if you want to stick with it – overall it was about 90 minutes of play. Doing this one on replay is fine – you won’t need weapons and your lower stamina isn’t much of an issue.
You can set a time of around 1:12. If you are not on your house preparing to go back when it rings, you should re try checkpoint. BTW if you start again at checkpoint your house won’t be near you. Remember to call him while you running down the hill.
After several frustrating attempts I just shot everyone. Most of the trinkets are overrated anyway.
Fill your cores, run in, grab it, run out. Worked for me.