[sfjailbird]

You're all overthinking it. They dumped their kitchen waste in the fields, and it happened to contain broken pottery too. It's the same for other archeological sites all over, many are waste dumps that contain interesting objects.

[MangoToupe]

How would you characterize this distinction? It sounds like you're simply describing the same behavior.

[pfannkuchen]

Intentional vs incidental?

[MangoToupe]

Does this matter? That is extremely difficult to differentiate via the archaeological record, so most archaeological research simply abandons the distinction. You should essentially never read intention into archaeology unless someone makes an extremely strong case the alternatives might be firmly excluded. As an example for a strong case of intention: if you find twenty skulls with pickaxes in their heads lined up on a shelf in an underground cubicular room, you should probably not assume this is a coincidence.

If you're reading about the use of pottery in soil, it does not matter what the people intended—at least, not as a primary concern. It is easy to read intention into headlines though.

[robertlagrant]

This is the intention the previous poster was countering:

> These discoveries suggest that the area’s Indigenous farmers may have dumped their household waste and the remnants of fires onto their fields, using them as compost

[MangoToupe]

Is the intention supposed to be in the quote, or are you trying to show there was no intention implied? I certainly agree with the latter.

[robertlagrant]

I read "using them as compost" as intention