Why does nobody talk about how pottery analysis has totally changed in the last 10 years?

I used to rely on just looking at rim shapes and decoration styles to date sherds (you know, the old typology method my professor drilled into me), but now I'm all about using portable XRF to check the chemical makeup of the clay. The shift started around 2015 when a dig in Arizona showed two sites with identical looking pots actually came from different quarries 50 miles apart. Do you still stick with visual methods or have you switched to tech-based analysis, and what made you change?

2 comments

2 Comments

roberts.jordan2d ago

Question if you're just overcomplicating basic dirt.

robin_wright2d ago

That's a lazy dismissal. The question is whether you're getting reliable data or just guessing based on looks. Did you ever actually test the visual method's accuracy against something like XRF or thin section petrography? Sometimes the old way works fine, but a lot of the time it's just confirmation bias dressed up as expertise. I'd ask you point blank: when was the last time you checked if your typology dates actually matched up with independent dating methods like carbon or archaeomagnetism? Because if you haven't, you're probably overconfident.