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That time I tried to date a site by pottery alone...
Spent three weeks classifying every sherd from a test pit in southern Utah. Thought I had a solid early Pueblo II date based on the corrugation patterns. Sent them to a specialist and she said half were from the 1970s. Learned the hard way that you can't just eyeball sherds without understanding local clay sources first.
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kai83918d ago
Wait, hold on. The specialist said half were from the 1970s? That's wild. How does pottery from the 1970s even end up in a test pit in southern Utah? I'm trying to picture someone tossing out a bunch of ceramic stuff back then and it just sitting there for fifty years. Honestly, that sounds like a nightmare, and @zaranelson's tip about a modern reference collection is genius. I bet it took forever to undo that mistake in your head.
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zaranelson18d ago
What really helped me was keeping a reference collection of modern stuff from the area. Once I had those 1970s sherds to compare against, the old ones started jumping right out.
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