digging up pots

[cathyr]

How come when historians dig up sites they often find only small parts of pots, plates etc? What has happened to the rest of the pot? Surely if the pot was left where it was used, the whole thing would be there in pieces, and if it has been thrown away, you'd throw the whole thing away in the same place?

[spudqueen]

Well I'm certainly no expert but I would guess that there are various reasons. One might be that left in the soil for a couple of thousand years, especially if close to the surface then frost and snow and heating up in summer might well break up pottery. Ploughing may also be responsible for them breaking up. Some may have been thrown away because they were broken.
I found a small piece of roman pottery (part of an amphora - but only a small piece) when I kicked a mole hill when I'd taken my kids to a playground in a local town which was a well known roman town. In the last 1600 years or so since the Romans left these shores the area of land where I found the pottery piece has probably had a variety of uses. It may well have been farm land, it may even have had buildings on it. It has certainly been levelled and had play equipment erected on it in the last 20 years. All of these may well have contributed to the destruction of a whole amphora.

[jno]

yes, a lot of what they find, I think, is from rubbish tips, so you'd expect things to be broken. And sometimes it may just be the usual subsidence and upheaval of soil that's done the work, as spudqueen says.

[vehelpfulguy]

The do sometimes find complete pots. Often these are in burial sites and the pot was buried with the person.

As has been said, I think the main reason they only find small parts is that the pot or jar may have been broken while being used and then just discarded.

If you think about it, if you were having a picnic in your back garden or in the country, and someone broke a cup or plate, you may well accidently leave part of it under a bush or hidden by the grass.

This small part could be found many years later.

[Lil O'lady]

Ploughing, the movement of water through the soil, earthworms tunnelling, rabbits digging, shrubs and trees growing - all lead to potsherds being moved around and dispersed across a site. Sometimes the finds made in fields actually got there from cottage middens, a cross between a dustbin and an earth toilet into which all household refuse was slung, to be periodically dug out (lovely job) and spread on nearby fields.