Showerthought: why do so many dig sites have broken pottery but almost no intact pieces?

I was reading about a Roman site in York last week and they found hundreds of shattered amphora shards but not one whole pot. It got me thinking about how we always find the broken stuff but rarely the complete items. My own attempt at cleaning a ceramic bowl from a field walk near my house ended with it cracking right in my hands... guess it was already weak. Is there a reason we find so much broken pottery versus whole vessels, or is it just the luck of preservation?

2 comments

2 Comments

cora56214h ago

Actually, intact pottery does survive pretty often in places like dry caves or waterlogged sites - think Cahokia's whole pots or the amphorae from Mediterranean shipwrecks. The issue is most settlements got picked over for reusable stuff and the broken bits just got tossed.

thompson.finley9h ago

@cora562 Yeah, fair point - I guess my pots just weren't cool enough to make it.