Saving items after death with archaeology

If you drop an item on the ground and wait at least five minutes, the item usually disappears, and there's no way to recover it. However, thanks to suspicious sand and gravel blocks, we could potentially find them in the surrounding terrain. We wouldn't retrieve all the items, but it's enough to get started. Obviously, this would only work if the player dies on suspicious sand and gravel blocks. Alternatively, a suspicious dirt block could be added solely for this mechanic.