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Unpopular opinion: context is everything when dating pottery sherds
I used to date pottery based only on rim profile and decoration style. An old field director told me I was ignoring the soil layer and associated charcoal fragments. After he showed me three sites where the same pot style showed up in different centuries, I started paying attention to stratigraphy and carbon samples. Now I cross-reference my ceramic timeline against radiocarbon dates and don't just trust the typology chart. Has anyone else had to relearn basic dating methods from a blunt mentor?
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