Radiocarbon dating is great but pottery typology still wins for me

I used to send every sherd off for lab testing, paid like $300 a sample back in 2019 near Santa Fe. Now I just sit with the local collection and compare rim shapes and temper, takes an afternoon and costs nothing. The dates are useful but they don't tell you about trade routes or local craft habits like the wares do. Am I the only one who thinks we lean too hard on tech and forget the old-school sorting methods?

1 comments

1 Comment

torres.grant20h ago

I used to be all about radiocarbon, thought anything else was guesswork. But after a dig in Arizona where the lab dates kept conflicting with the stratigraphy, I finally sat down with a local sherd collection and it clicked. Youre right about the trade routes, you can see the raw materials shift over time in a way a number just cant capture. Now I run lab tests maybe once a season, just to check my typology calls, and honestly it feels more grounded.