Picking up fragile remains at archaeological excavation sites is a crucial step and greatly affects the safety and consequential conservation and restoration of the cultural relics.Therefore, a method for picking up needs to be scientifically sound, thoughtful, safe and effective. This paper illustrates the practical demands and challenges for picking up fragile remains at archaeological excavation sites and summarizes the principles and requirements regarding the materials used. Commonly used methods, such as those using gypsum, polyurethane foam, cyclododecane and menthol are discussed and compared. The technology and performance of each method is reviewed. The future development of this group of methods picking up objects is also included.