This may first involve washing, counting, weighing, and cataloguing all the artifacts. They are then carefully sorted into different categories according to their attributes. Archaeologists classify artifacts in order to answer specific research questions. For instance, if an archaeologist wants to know about the economic status of a household, she will group artifacts into those that are essential for survival and those that are not. A large quantity of artifacts that are not essential for meeting a person's basic needs for survival may indicate that the household had a lot of extra income.
Pottery is one of the most important artifacts to an archaeologist.
It does not decompose as easily as food, cloth, and other organic remains, so it is often the most abundant artifact found on a site. Also the method and style in which people made their pottery change over time and space, so pottery can often be used to determine the age of a site and its relations with other cultures. Attributes of pottery such as shape, size, decoration, and paste are studied in order to divide pottery into different groups for study. The design on this sherd tells us it was made by a Creek Indian potter. Based on the glaze and decoration on this plate, we know it is French faience from the mid-18th century.