0 a broken piece of an object made of baked clay, especially one found by an archaeologist (= someone who studies the buildings, graves, objects, etc. of people who lived in the past):
He had to handle potsherds to know how things fit in the grand scheme of things.
Of some 40 to 50 such test pits, we only found abundant potsherds in five.
There were also large quantities of potsherds without traces of fire damage, as well as a number of spindle whorls, a loom weight and a whetstone.
Grindstones were discovered at all three sites, and there are numerous potsherds with organic remains, presumably the result of mishaps in cooking millet and sorghum, adhering to their inner surfaces.
While those flint flakes and potsherds are found somewhere - in a rubbish pit or a posthole or a ditch - this object had arrived alone in the post.
A sherd or potsherd that has been used by having writing painted or inscribed on it can be more precisely referred to as an ostracon.
There are potsherds and obsidian flakes strewn on the surface of the ground.
Potsherds were often used for correspondence in place of the less durable papyrus; occasionally the recipient wrote the answer on the back of the potsherd.
