An Approach to Quantifying Ceramic Vessels Among Diverse Datasets

This article compares approaches to counting ceramic vessels among large datasets of already catalogued sherds and aims to demonstrate that relative proportions of vessel forms can be used to address questions of sociocultural behavior, irrespective of approaches to recording sherd counts. We aim to demonstrate that it is valid to carry out quantitative, comparative, intersite analyses of sufficiently large ceramic datasets of sherds that were recorded in different ways and for which specific, time-consuming methods for calculating vessel quantities were not carried out at the time of recording. We use the χ² goodness-of-fit test to demonstrate that to be able to do comparative analyses of pottery types among such datasets, it matters little how sherds are counted. As a case study we use the Arch-I-Scan Project’s catalogue of terra sigillata sherds (often called “samian” in the United Kingdom) from three different locations in Roman Britain. We demonstrate that different ways of recording vessel forms have little impact on the proportional relationships of such forms. This method can thus document food-consumption practices across different contexts.