Yes, assessment of importance is on of those tricky ones, a bit like
assessing how 'at risk' a building is. It's difficult to reduce to a
simple concept, but its appealing as it assists with management and
prioritisation.
In my previous job as a post-exc. pottery person I always prioritised
the larger better preserved assemblages that had good stratigraphic
links to the rest of the site (and preferably clay pipes to date them).
So that's at least four different bits of information.
One route, if folk thought that this was of information of particular
importance to them, would be to record not just importance/potential,
but also _who_ had made the assessment and _when_ . However, as
Dominique points out, the workgroups current position is that this
should not be a recommended thing to record.
Ed
>
> Assessment of importance: We debated this point long and hard and
decided
> that the potential, because of its changeable character, could not be
> usefully expressed here. Instead we would rely on assemblage size (see
> table, scale 1-3) although it was fully realised that size is not the
> answer to that question but simply a pointer.
>
> Dominique
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