In archaeological research designs that focus on sites in coastal and shore-bound areas, a short geographical distance is often equated with a high degree of functional correlation between settlement and water without any further investigations of this (pre-)supposed relationship. This is both a theoretical and a methodological problem: instead of testing a hypothesis against the empirical material as the result of actions carried out by prehistoric people, a vaguely characterized empirical pattern is argued to reflect the inherent interrelationship to water. This article presents a process of generating and applying appropriate methodological approaches in the study of water-bound strategies. It explores a site with an initially unknown character and date, but with the remains of a still monumental artificial earthen wall standing close to what was hypothesized to be a former shore zone at Garn, in east central Sweden, and delves into how water-bound strategies might be expressed and investigated in archaeology.