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That moment I realized I was dating my pottery shards all wrong
I was sorting through a box of digs from a site near Flagstaff, placing every piece in a labeled baggie like I always do. Then a visiting professor from Northern Arizona University glanced at my system and said, 'You're mixing rim sherds with body sherds from different vessels.' I had been grouping them by color and decoration for two years, thinking that was standard. Turns out I was basically trashing the context that could link pieces to the same pot. Has anyone else had a mentor correct a basic sorting habit you swear you learned right the first time?
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rowan7251mo ago
And get yourself a set of zip ties and some cardboard dividers for your sorting trays, that stopped me from mixing rim and body sherds more than once. If you can keep vessels separated by physical barriers instead of memory, you cut down on these mix-ups by a lot. It's a cheap fix that beats the headache of re-sorting two years of work.
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simon_coleman1mo ago
Honestly, that stings but it's the kind of wake-up call that saves you years of headaches later. It's wild how one small sorting habit can mess up the whole story of a site.
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