Chat with a field tech changed how I see pot sherds

I was talking to a guy who worked a dig in New Mexico and he said the small broken pieces tell you more about daily life than whole pots ever could. Now I don't just walk past sherds at sites, I actually stop and try to picture who used them and why.

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linda3052mo ago

Did he mention if there's a way to tell whether a sherd came from a cooking pot versus a storage jar just from the break pattern or the type of wear on the edges? Because I've got a couple from a site in Texas that have these smooth, rounded edges that make me think they were scraped out a lot, and I'm wondering if that means they were used for daily meal prep or if it was just from being tumbled in a wash.

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finleylopez2mo ago

Hold up a sec - that smooth edge thing is actually pretty common from natural tumbling in water or wind, not from people scraping them out. I mean, yeah, if you see a pattern of scratches going the same direction inside the curve, that's more likely from daily scraping with a tool. But just rounded edges by themselves? That's usually from erosion, not use wear. Idk if the guy you talked to mentioned this, but the real clue is looking at the inside glaze or temper too - cooking pots tend to have more soot staining and a rougher interior from thermal shock. Maybe it's just me, but I'd bet those smooth-edged sherds of yours are more likely from a storage jar that got rolled around in a stream bed for a while rather than a cooking pot.

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