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Met a retired digger at a Tulsa museum who said most field notes are worthless in 5 years
I was at the Philbrook in Tulsa killing time before a flight and got talking to this volunteer named Ray who dug at Spiro for 12 summers back in the 70s. He said the trowel work is the easy part, the real discovery is whoever actually writes down where a thing sat and how deep it was. Now I'm redoing all my context sheets from a site off the Arkansas River because half of them just say 'near base of wall' and that tells me nothing. How detailed do you all get with your level notes? Is a photo grid overkill or should I be doing that from day one?
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emma_lee222d ago
Watched my old professor get roasted at a conference for exactly this, his notes said "artifact near floor" with no depth and no map, and a younger archaeologist stood up and asked how anyone was supposed to re-check his work. I used to roll my eyes at people doing photo grids because it felt like overkill and time we did not have, but now I take the grid shots before I move anything. Ray is right that the writing is the real work. The trowel just gets you there. Level notes should include depth below datum, exact spot in the square, and how the thing sat, tilted or flat, because that tells you way more than "base of wall" ever will.
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