Am I the only one who used to toss pottery fragments without a second look?

Back on my first dig in Cornwall, I'd sort through buckets of sherds and just keep the ones with clear patterns. A professor saw me do it and said, 'That plain piece could tell us more about daily meals than the fancy one.' Now I bag and tag every single scrap, even the boring brown ones. How do you decide what's worth keeping on a crowded site?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_joel17d agoMost Upvoted

My buddy learned that the hard way. He was working a Roman site in Spain, tossing all the plain body sherds. They hit a layer that was just... more plain sherds. Turned out to be a huge dump for common kitchen ware. Missed the whole story of site use because he was hunting for pretty stamps. Now he keeps a sample of everything, no matter how boring it looks. The plain stuff sets the scene.

grace_bailey15d ago

Yeah, that's so true. I read an article about a dig where they almost ignored these rough, ugly stone flakes. Everyone was focused on the nice arrowheads. But mapping where all those flakes piled up showed the exact spot where people sat and made tools every day. It changed how they saw the whole camp. The boring bits are like the background noise, and if you filter it all out, you miss the real picture.

wendy2717d ago

Oh man, that hits home. I worked a site where we almost did the same thing with these tiny, crumbly bone fragments. Everyone wanted the big, cool pieces. But those little bits? They were ALL over one area. Ended up showing us where the daily butchering actually happened, not just the fancy feasts. You really do have to fight the urge to just go for the showy finds.