Shards are small, broken pieces of material, often glass or pottery, that result from the shattering of a larger object. They can vary in size and shape, and are commonly found in archaeological sites, where they provide insights into past human activities and cultures. In the context of technology, particularly in databases, shards refer to segments of data that are distributed across multiple servers. This method, known as sharding, helps improve performance and scalability by allowing systems to manage large datasets more efficiently.