Help creating some NPC's (questions about skills)

[Minwaabi]

Okay, I've got a mini quest line starting up and I'm rolling up some NPC's who will be with the PC for the next several gaming sessions. One of the main NPC's is an archeologist so I'm going to make an expert. However, as I was picking the class skills I was wondering about some of them:

search vs. spot
Is spot *only* for detecting hidden creatures? And search is for non creatures? For example, if you want to notice something out of the ordinary such as a fossil among a bunch of rocks, is that a search check or a spot check?

Appraise vs. Forgery
You find what appears to be an ancient ming vase. Do you use appraise or forgery to see if it is really an ancient ming vase or just a cheap knock off?

[lorddrake]

Since you're DMing my suggestion is to do what sound more logical. I don't exactly know (right now) what's written in the skill description, but I'd say it is more logical search for a fossil, since you don't go wandering in some cave and *puff* there it is, the fossil. You search for it.

And I guess appraise is the RAW skill for that example, but I may be wrong. If I take a look on the books, I'll tell you surely.