Found a broken clay pot in my backyard and it changed how I dig test pits

I was digging a test pit in my backyard near Richmond last summer and kept finding tiny sherds, but I wasn't keeping them in any order by depth. My buddy who studied archaeology at VCU saw my pile of bagged pieces and asked why I mixed levels 3 and 5 together. That's when it clicked I was basically ignoring the whole point of stratigraphy. Has anyone else had a moment where you realized you were destroying your own data by being careless?

2 comments

2 Comments

morgan.joseph23d ago

Wait, didn't your buddy mention that you can actually sort mixed sherds by post-firing wear or soil residue if you're careful? Not saying stratigraphy isn't important, but I've had a few old-timers tell me they've fixed jumbled collections by looking at how the dirt sticks to the breaks. You gotta be super thorough with a magnifying glass and good light though, that part is tedious. I still think bagging by depth is the right way to go from the start, but sometimes you gotta work with what you got.

river_adams2523d ago

Doesn't post-firing wear usually mean the pot broke after it was already in the ground though?