Looking For An Archaeology Expert

[Darksky40]

Is there an Archaeology Expert who can Identify pieces of Crockery pottery as I often find broken pieces in the garden probably pushed up by the worms and I like them identified please can anyone help?

[jno]

are they actually ancient Roman or more modern?

There seem to be lots of websites, if you google "identifying old pottery"; see if they offer any ideas.

[stuey]

This does not answer your question, but what you might be finding are items from an old midden. They might be very interesting as far as local history is concerned.

[Mosaic]

If the pottery is glazed on both sides and is relatively thin - say like the thickness of a modern coffee mug - then it probably dates from the 1800s onwards. Some might be from the 1700s, and way to distinguish between the two is by looking at the overall shapes of the whole vessels and the patterns on them. You're unlikely to have whole vessels so you have to kind of guess at what the originals might have been like.

You often find potsherds that are reddish in colour with a deep chocolate-brown glaze on one side. These come from the 1800s equivalent of plastic bowls, and they were made and used in huge quantities all over the place.
Thick pottery with cream, brown and white glaze might be from the 1600s, called 'slipware'.
Now if you find thickish red earthenware splashed on one side with bright green glaze - that's from before the 1500s, so lucky you.

If you're finding lots of pot with no glaze and with very worn edges - often the pot is soft enough to scratch into with your fingernail - this might be Anglo-Saxon, Roman, or even prehistoric, so definitely call your local council and ask for an archaeologist!
Like Stuey said, these are often from the old earth toilets, that doubled up as general wastebins. The best thing I ever saw from one was a pretty blue-and-white pottery ball called a 'carpet bowl', very popular in Victorian times.
Enjoy your pottery collection!

[Tuvok]

Try your local museum.

[Peter Pedant]

You can do this yourself you know (!)

I am not sure if sherds get lectures to themselves
( see Mosaics contribution)

This lot:
http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511558207&cid=CBO9780511558207A023

got on their hands and knees in Nubia actually, and said - 5 cm we got type A, 10cms type B so type B has to precede type A but we are not sure of the time......

relative dating - Flinders Petrie started it all

so go off to your local museum and look at the cabinet of 15th cent pott and think - oh it looks like that - and then stare at the 16th cent pott cabinet and think Oh, it look like THAT and then stare at the ....

oh and photograph them and keep a catalogue
since you are finding them on a surface then stratigraphy ( = the context ) is no real help and so you only ever get rough dates

[ oh god it shows I have worked on an archeological site innit ? Nubia actually 1980 ]

[ My brother got a bronze ax head on the surface and I squealed - is this a joke, did you buy this ? and we thought probably when the garding was redone in the 1850s they had got a job lot of earth from somewhere .... )