The Reshaped Sherd: A Comparative Study of Ancestral Pueblo Worked Sherd Assemblages

Summary

Every site has at least one: the worked sherd. Game piece? Scraper? Spindle whorl? Miscellaneous ceramic object? Different analysts categorize these easily recognized but not always easily interpreted artifacts in different ways. In this presentation, we examine worked sherd assemblages from three 13th-15th century Ancestral Puebloan villages. Differences among these assemblages attest to variable contexts of use and meaning for worked sherds. We argue that individual worked sherds should be understood within a larger framework of worked sherd assemblages, and suggest some key attributes to consider when such objects are present in a collection.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20655