Medieval London Pottery

Jacqui Pearce, Senior Ceramic Specialist at MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology), discusses the development of MOLA’s medieval London pottery type series. The excavation of a number of waterfront sites in London led to the discovery of pottery-rich medieval dumps located behind wooden river revetments. The revetment timbers were accurately dated through dendrochronology which enabled MOLA to create an incredibly detailed typology of pottery through the medieval period. Pottery is the most common material found on archaeological sites and this precise dating information has been hugely important, enabling us to date the layers of archaeology found on our sites.