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I used to think those little grooves on old pottery were just decoration, then a museum worker in Tucson handed me a sherd
Three years back I was at the Arizona State Museum for a free lecture and a volunteer named Dana let me hold a Hohokam bowl fragment. She pointed at the fine parallel lines near the rim and said they were wear from stirring, not art. I always figured ancient pots were plain tools, but she pulled out a 1970s study showing residues matched the same wear on modern cooking pots. Took me about 10 minutes to drop a belief I'd held since college. Has anyone seen similar use-wear marks on southwestern ceramics, or is this still a debated thing?
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lopez.faith5d ago
My buddy did a dig near Gila Bend and his prof made everyone sketch those stir marks on every sherd, said they could tell how long a pot got used by how deep the grooves wore in. He thought it was busywork until they matched it up with residue samples. Not sure if it's settled science but the residue angle seems pretty solid.
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