The above shortcomings have rarely been addressed by
scholars. Bollong's scoring method (1994: 17e19, Table 1) is one of
the few and most notable contributions on this subject to date.
This author defined six types of sherd-to-vessel associations
ranging from actual physical refits to more uncertain linkages and
isolated examples with no association in the assemblage, known
as ‘orphan’ sherds. However, his scheme relies heavily upon visual
impressions expressed in qualitative indexes, inhibiting an independent
evaluation of the results. Moreover, Bollong does not pay
adequate attention to body sherds with no physical matches,
which represent the bulk of potsherds in any ceramic assemblage.
Ceramic thin section analysis could be a strategy well suited to