Yes that happens.
My concern would be in its secondary context would this assemblage be 
noticable or not noticable to one walking along the surface of the ground at 
the time and given surrounding soils and conditions wet, try whatever how 
would the pieces move given traffic over them or settling when left alone. I 
would need to know what the form of the secondary context was and I don’t 
mean sheet midden, pile, heap or other usless over generalization. Even 
sheet middens can have structure that is if you are willing to look for it.

Conrad

-----Original Message----- 
From: geoff carver
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 8:42 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Counting bits

Sorry: that wasn't vessels, it was like 23 sherds, and over 80% of that was
from one vessel...
& everyone from Pitt-Rivers on has insisted that context is everything

-----Original Message-----

As for your 23 vessels i would want to know the
geographical. stratigraphical, chronological and social context of every
piece and navigability of adjacent rivers through time before making any
judgement