the_rose•6d agoTop Commenter

Hit 150 pottery shards from one dig site and now I'm not sure if it's a midden or a ritual dump

Spent last summer on a site near Cahokia Mounds and we pulled exactly 150 shards from a 3 meter square. My supervisor says it's just a trash pit from daily cooking, but the variety of rim styles and decoration seems way too diverse for that. I think it might be a ceremonial discard area where they smashed pots after feasts. Has anyone else hit a weird number of artifacts that made you question the official interpretation?

3 comments

3 Comments

sandrat246d agoMost Upvoted

OH MAN, here we go again with the ritual dump theory. I swear every time someone finds a weird pile of pottery shards it HAS to be ceremonial or some kind of ancient party trash. Look, sometimes people just broke a lot of pots in the same spot because that's where they cooked and ate EVERY DAY for years. 150 shards from one square meter isn't THAT crazy if you think about how many meals get made over a generation or two. The rim style variety could just mean they bought or traded for pots from different villages over time, not that it's a sacred event. You're overthinking this, just call it a midden and move on before your supervisor starts giving you that look.

claire_wells876d ago

Hey riverreed, with those two distinct rim style clusters you found by the Mississippi, did the painted ones show any crush patterns that looked like they were deliberately broken before they ended up in the pit?

riverreed6d ago

I pulled 137 sherds out of a test pit near the Mississippi River a few years back, same thing, supervisor called it a midden. But the temper was all wrong, mostly fine grit and crushed shell when local cookware was usually grog. I bagged everything separate and laid it out on a tarp. Turns out the rim styles clustered into two distinct types, one was all thick and utilitarian, the other was thin with painted designs. I'd try sorting yours by rim type and decoration, see if you get two clear piles. If you do, that's not a daily trash pit, that's two different events or groups leaving stuff.