Quick tip on dating pottery sherds from surface finds

I keep seeing people post photos of random pottery pieces they found and say they're Roman or medieval based on nothing but a hunch. If you actually look at the temper material under a cheap magnifying glass, you can often spot crushed shell or grog that tells you the real period. Has anyone else noticed people jumping to conclusions without checking the basics first?

2 comments

2 Comments

jakewhite17h ago

Back in 2001 I was digging through a plowed field in Kent and found what I was dead certain was Saxon pottery because of the dark color and fine texture. I took it to a local archaeology group meeting and the guy running it just looked at it for a second, pulled out his own little magnifier, and pointed to what looked like tiny bits of crushed flint in the paste. Turned out it was probably 18th century or later. I felt like a fool but that one lesson stuck with me more than any book ever did. Now I get why checking the temper is the first step not the last.

jesse841d ago

Oh man, you're hitting on something that makes me cringe every time I see it. I'll admit I was TOTALLY guilty of this when I first started out. I'd find a piece of pottery with some red paint on it and immediately call it Roman without even bothering to look at the actual clay. I basically trusted my gut instead of my eyes, which is a TERRIBLE way to date anything. Now I carry a little 10x loupe in my pocket everywhere and I look for things like shell temper or crushed rock before I even guess at a date. It's embarrassing how many times I thought I had something medieval and it turned out to be a 19th century drainage pipe or something.