Ask an archaeologist what they find most often and the answer is usually the same: broken pottery. Fired clay breaks easily but almost never disappears, and pots were made, used and thrown away in huge numbers. That makes sherds — the broken pieces — one of the most useful kinds of evidence we have.
Pottery as a clock
Pottery styles change over time: shapes, decoration, the way clay was prepared and fired. Once archaeologists have worked out the sequence of styles in a region, a handful of sherds can date a layer, sometimes to within a few decades. We explain how this fits with other methods in how archaeologists date a site.
In some places pottery dates itself. Roman wine and olive oil jars, called amphorae, often carried stamps or painted labels, and Greek painted pottery changed style quickly enough to date finds closely.
Following the clay
Every clay source has its own mix of minerals. By examining thin slices of a sherd under a microscope, or measuring its chemical make-up, specialists can often tell where a pot was made. A jar made hundreds of kilometres away is evidence of trade, travel or gifts between communities.
A pot found far from its clay is a map of a journey.
What was inside
Unglazed pottery absorbs tiny traces of what it held. Chemical analysis of these residues can detect fats from meat or milk, plant oils, beeswax and wine. Such studies have shown, for example, when people in different regions began using milk — information no written source records.
How it was made
Marks on a pot reveal its making. Coil-built pots show joins between rings of clay; wheel-thrown pots show fine spiral lines. Firing colour and hardness tell us about kilns and temperature. Together they show whether pots were made at home or by specialist workshops working at scale.
Who used it, and how
Cooking pots blackened by fire, fine tableware for guests, huge storage jars for grain: the mix of pottery in a house says a great deal about how people ate, stored food and entertained. At Indus cities such as Mohenjo-daro, the distinctive red pottery with black painted designs appears across a huge area, part of a shared material culture.
Why sherds matter on site
A sherd’s value depends on knowing exactly where it was found. That is why archaeologists record every layer and why picking up pottery from a site, even a “worthless” fragment, removes information that cannot be recovered. If you visit a site, see our guide to visiting heritage sites responsibly.
Questions readers ask
Why do archaeologists find so much pottery?
Can pottery tell us what people ate?
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