Volunteer dig at a Roman site taught me a lesson about pottery sherds

I spent three days digging at a Roman villa site near Bath last summer, and I kept grabbing every tiny piece of pottery I saw. The site director finally pulled me aside and told me I was wasting time on unidentifiable sherds smaller than a fingernail. He showed me how to focus on rim pieces, base fragments, and decorated sections that actually tell you something about the vessel. After that, I started finding more usable data in one afternoon than I had in the whole first two days. I learned that not every artifact is worth bagging, even if it looks old. Has anyone else had a dig supervisor teach them a hard truth about field sorting?

2 comments

2 Comments

wesley_hart27d ago

That "background noise" part hits hard. I read an article once where a pro digger said experienced archaeologists basically train their brains to ignore 90% of what they see so they can focus on the real clues.

johnson.adam27d ago

So you're saying he taught you to stop treating every sherd like a gold coin, right? That lines up with what I've heard from a few folks who've done field work. It's kind of like learning to read a landscape instead of just staring at every rock. Once you know what to look for, the small stuff just becomes background noise. I bet by the end of that trip you could spot a rim piece from ten feet away without even thinking about it.