Feathers addresses the dual challenges of inferring original vessel counts from sherds and inference to use life from reconstructed vessels. His solution assumes the validity of sherd assemblages as units of observation that considerable research invalidates and overlooks methods that estimate original vessels from sherds. Feathers also doubts that use life can be inferred for reconstructed vessels. Although not a focus of my article, the larger study from which it derived addresses this matter in detail that strongly warrants vessel size as use-life measure. Of course we must be pragmatic in quantifying pottery assemblages, but first we must identify valid units of observation, and only then attend to pragmatics.

Feathers 解决了从碎片推断原始血管数量和从重建血管推断使用寿命的双重挑战。他的解决方案假定碎片组合作为观察单位的有效性，大量研究使从碎片中估计原始船只的方法无效并忽略了这一方法。Feathers 还对能否推断重建血管的使用寿命表示怀疑。虽然这不是我的文章的重点，但它所衍生的更大规模的研究详细讨论了这个问题，强烈保证容器尺寸作为使用寿命衡量标准。当然，我们在量化陶器组合时必须务实，但首先我们必须确定有效的观察单位，然后才关注实用性。