Showerthought: why do dig sites always have the exact same broken pottery?

Every single excavation I've been on around Austin this summer has turned up tons of identical broken rims and handles from the same era. Is that just coincidence or are we missing something about how these folks trashed their stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

miab8716d ago

Yeah the pottery thing is wild especially when you consider how much of it was probably just daily use stuff that broke the same way every time. Like those thick rim sherds from cooking vessels they'd have a few of those in use at any given time and they'd crack around the fire after enough heat cycles. The handles too you see the same loop handles everywhere because that's just how you made a sturdy jar you could carry around. Maybe they just had a really standardized approach to making pots that didn't change much across households or generations. It makes you wonder if future archaeologists will dig up our Ikea plates and think we all had the exact same taste.

jones.brooke15d ago

I feel you on the "same exact taste" thing, that really puts it in perspective. It's kind of a bummer to think future folks might see our stuff and think we had no individuality either. Makes you realize how much of our daily lives is just about what works and gets the job done.