The Trials of Being a Utensil: Pottery Function at the Medieval Hamlet of West Cotton, Northamptonshire

The excavation of the deserted medieval hamlet of West Cotton in Northamptonshire produced over 100,000 sherds of medieval pottery, much of which was stratified in yard middens. The function of pottery within the hamlet was analysed, using a combination of comparative and correlative statistics, organic residue analysis, spatial distribution and the historic record. The results suggest that different vessel forms within the same functional taxonomy may have had quite different uses that were related to form rather than quality of manufacture, whilst others had additional functions which were quite different from those usually assigned to them by archaeologists.