#125 33rd GBAC, Day 1 Detail (Part 1 of 2)

(In an effort to keep these posts from being filed in the tl:dr category I’ve split this one into two parts. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.)

OK. Here is my detailed accounting of the papers I heard presented on day one of the Great Basin Anthropological Conference. First, I have a complaint. Big surprise, right? There were no less than five symposiums and two general sessions during the first half of the day. There was one plenary session in the afternoon. Now maybe the reason for that was to drive people to the plenary session, I don't know. What I do know is that I missed a lot of good papers Thursday morning because I couldn't be in more than one place at once. What am I, a Q-bit? Extra points if you know what that is. Since the inability to split ourselves into multiple components like an evil wizard afflicts us all I'd like to plead for more use of Twitter at events such as this one. Currently, there is one other person tweeting at this conference and we are attending many of the same papers. If there were more people tweeting then someone could follow other presentations while watching one or, while not even being at the conference at all. OK. That's my rant for now. I'm sure there will be more in the future.

The first symposium I attended was the Paleoindian Research one organized by G. Smith and T. Wriston. The papers presented focused on several questions including, "(1) when did humans colonize the northern Great Basin?; (2) what is the relationship between fluted and stemmed projectile points?; (3) how did Paleoindians use the landscape at both a local and regional scale?; and (4) how can new approaches be used to tackle old questions?" Pretty much all the big questions in Great Basin, and North American, archaeology. They did a descent job of it.

Obsidian overshot flake.The first paper was entitled, "Identifying Fluted Point Sites in the Desert West" by Mike Rondeau. His idea is that fluted point sites can still be identified even if all the fluted points have been removed by collectors. This is done, in part, by identifying overshot flakes that are a typical byproduct of the fluted point knapping process. In fact, overshot flakes themselves are sometimes worked into other point types through time. Rondeau says that there are thousands of fluted points in the hands of collectors in the Great Basin alone. What does knowledge of where these sites are located tell us about the Clovis First model? My own question is how many of these sites have already been identified by CRM archaeologists that didn't know how to identify them? Probably quite a few. I know I'll be taking a closer look at prehistoric lithic scatters from now on.

Obsidian HydrationNext, I heard a paper by Fagen, et al. on trace element analysis and obsidian hydration dating of obsidian from a massive site in southern Oregon. It was located as part of the Ruby Pipeline project for those of you familiar with that project. The site was a monstrous 1,200 acre lithic landscape with buried deposits. There was also a habitation area situated right on top of the source obsidian. Fortunately, most of the obsidian occurs in small nodules, otherwise, the medical bills from small cuts would have been enormous! Analysis of the obsidian showed that there was non-local toolstone there as well which illuminated the trade and exchange networks in the region.

The third paper in the Paleo session didn't discuss projectile points at all! Instead, the authors, Barker et al., discussed textiles and the radiocarbon dating of textiles found mostly in caves and rock shelters from around the Great Basin. Some of the 8-10 kyo sandals and baskets were made on loom-type frames, which I didn't know existed back that far. Of course, I know little to nothing of prehistoric textiles.

Historic tram. The one discussed in the paper had a wooden box.After the textile lesson I jumped over to a discussion of tram use on a historic mining site. The tram was several miles long and served a number of mines. It's amazing that such a thing existed in the 1870s. White mentioned that the ore box was a 2 ft by 2 ft by 10 in wooden box that carried ore over 11,000 ft with an elevation drop of over 2,000 ft. High grade ore was still moved by wagon since it was deemed to valuable to risk.

Tomorrow I'll post the second part of day one.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you in the field.

#124 The 33rd Biennial Great Basin Conference, Day 1 Brief

I'm actually writing this on the morning of Day 2 while waiting for the first papers to start at 0800. I'm not staying up here in Tahoe since I live in Reno and drive a Prius. It costs me about $9 round trip to drive here which is a heck of a lot cheaper than hotels up here. Also, I get to see my wife in the evenings. The downside is that I have to get up at 0500 in order to shower, stop at Starbucks, and make the hour drive out. I have a compulsion to be early for things which I got from my time in the Navy. A particular a Division Chief told me once that you should never be right on time for something. You should always be either fifteen minutes early or fifteen minutes late. Early shows that you were prepared for traffic or other contingencies and late allows you time to come up with a great excuse! I've lived by that for twenty years.

Anyway, yesterday was the first day of the conference. It's my first time attending the Great Basin Conference. I've always been in the field and couldn't leave when they've happened in the past. Since they only occur every two years you miss a lot when you don't go. Now I'm in a better professional position and can afford the time to go.

As with the SAAs, the biggest draw so far has been to the Paleoindian Symposium that started right at 0800. The symposium was a regular who's who of Great Basin Paleo work. Papers were given by Jenkins, Fagen, Fowler (Catherine), and Davis with a discussion from Beck and Jones. 

After this is all over I'm going to have more detailed posts about the conference. For now, you can follow the two of us that are tweeting what we see by searching #gbac2012.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you in the field.

#123 Shovelbums Guide Part 17: Township and Range

Here's another long-awaited installment of my Shovelbums Guide Series.  If this post helps you or increases your knowledge in anyway please repost or give it a retweet.  Thanks!

Archaeologists on the West coast, in many of the plains and central states, Alaska, and Hawaii are likely familiar with the Township and Range system.  Here in the Great Basin and in surrounding states the “legal location” of a project area or an individual site is given in quarter quarter sections using the Township and Range System.  But, what is the system and where do we get coordinates like T17N, R15E, Mount Diablo Meridian?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  I’ll start with a short history of the rectangular survey system, also known as the Public Lands Survey System (PLSS).

The PLSS was originally proposed by Thomas Jefferson.  It began after the Revolutionary War ended and the Federal Government became responsible for massive areas of land west of the original thirteen colonies.  The government wanted to distribute land to Revolutionary War soldiers in reward for service and they wanted to sell land as a way to raise money.  Before this could happen the land needed to be surveyed.

Two laws helped create the PLSS as we know it today (well, up until 1973, anyway).  The Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for the systematic survey and marking of public lands.  Apparently it took two years to figure out how to actually accomplish that because in 1787 the Northwest Ordinance established a rectangular survey system to give coordinates to the land parcels.  The PLSS has been in continuous use since 1785 and is the basis for most land transfers and ownership today.  The current procedures for accomplishing the PLSS were set down in the Manual of Instructions for the Survey of the Public Lands of the United States in 1973.

Not all land was included in the survey.  Lands not surveyed included beds of navigable bodies of water, national installations (military, parks, etc.), and land grants already in private ownership.

According to the Bureau of Land Management’s website almost 1.5 billion acres have been surveyed for the PLSS to date.  The BLM is the record keeper for over 200 years of survey information, which often includes the original surveyor's notes and hand-drawn maps.

Now that we know how it started, let’s talk about exactly what the PLSS is and how we get to township and range coordinates.

As stated above, the PLSS is used to divide public land.  Since the system was started after the Revolutionary War it mostly only applies to new land that was acquired after that time.  That’s why none of the thirteen original states were included: there was little public land left.

States included in the Survey

The PLSS divides land into 6-mile square townships.  The townships are then divided into 36 sections.  The sections can then be divided into half, quarter, and quarter quarter sections.  It may not make sense that the quarter quarter sections aren’t 1/16 sections but once you write it out and use the system it seems to work.  The sections are number starting in the northeastern corner and continue right to left.  The numbers snake down going left to right (7 through 12) in the second row then back the other direction and so on.  The section numbers end at 36 in the southeastern corner.  Each section is usually 640 acres or one-mile by one-mile square.  It makes it really easy to do block surveys in the West, that’s for sure.

The township and range coordinates are based on regional meridians and baselines, 37 of them.  Range is designated east and west of the Principle Meridian for the region and Township is designated north and south of the baseline.  When reporting the location of a parcel of land using township and range it’s necessary to include the Principle Meridian.  For much of California and all of Nevada the Principle Meridian runs through Mt. Diablo in California.  So, a proper land designation for somewhere in Nevada would be, Nevada, Mt. Diablo Meridian, Township 21N, Range 15E, Section 35.

Regions, Principle Meridians, and Baselines

There are several areas of the country where this system is different for various reasons.  In Ohio and Indiana, where the surveys started, the townships are 6 miles square.  The surveys are named, but the names are not named based on the principle meridians, and the numbering system and starting points are different.  In Louisiana things really get crazy.  They are based on parcels of land known as arpent sections and they pre-date the public surveys.  An arpent measures 192 feet and a square arpent, confusingly called an arpent, is about 0.84 acres.  The parcels are designed to give settlers living on waterways beachfront property and tillable, farmable land.  So, they are oddly shaped.  French arpents were two to four arpents wide and 40 to 60 arpents deep.  Spanish arpents were 6 to 8 arpents wide and 40 arpents deep.  Section numbers frequently exceed 36.  I can’t continue.  It’s just too crazy.  If you plan to work in Louisiana find out how it all works.  You’ll be smarter and happier for it.

The Ohio Situation

The Townships of the French Arpent System

Now you should be an expert on the public land survey system.  When someone says the site is located in T17N, R15E of the Mt. Diablo Meridian you’ll know what that means.  I’ll admit that I was out in the West for quite a while before I really knew what the township and range system really meant.  Find out where your principle meridian originates from and impress your friends.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the field.

#122 Stated and Unstated Goals in CRM Projects - Guest Post

The following is a guest post from Bill White, the owner and founder of Succint Research, based out of Tuscon, AZ.  Bill's bio is at the end of this post.  Let's get right to it!  Be sure to follow Bill in all of the appropriate places using the links he provides.  Enjoy.

The stated and unstated goals of cultural resource management projects

It was one of those moments when you just think to yourself but don’t say anything. After slogging through the Sonoran Desert for 5 weeks during the heart of summer, my boss was telling me that the project area was slightly miss-marked by the surveyors. The area provided by the client was incorrect, so what I’d surveyed wasn’t the actual project area. This meant we hadn’t covered the whole APE. Guess what? I was going back out there to finish the job.

How did this happen? How could they “finalize” a project area without double-checking if it was correct? Most importantly, who should I be mad at?

I never did figure out whom to be mad at, but this project was an excellent example of how there are two types of goals for every cultural resource management project: stated goals (the ones in the scope of work or contract) and unstated goals (the goals of your boss, your client, and yourself).

Here’s what I mean:

Stated goals are obvious. They’re all the little things you, your co-workers, and your company have to do to complete a given project. This includes stuff like archaeological surveys, excavation, monitoring (makes you snooze, but it pays the bills), and report production. But this also includes creating and sending invoices, collecting payments, writing proposals, and reporting to the client. The client also has pretty obvious stated goals, most specifically, “getting their cultural resources box” checked off so they can proceed with their undertaking.

Unstated goals are not as obvious. This includes all the personal stuff that never gets said out loud. Your boss may have an unstated goal of staying on budget and saving money. You can probably guess your company’s primary unstated goals: make money and make clients happy. Aside from earning beer money, you also have some unstated goals even though you don’t usually think about them. These may include doing interesting work, finding and digging up cool stuff, learning something you didn’t know before, and impressing your supervisors enough to stay employed or earn a promotion.

What we typically don’t think about is all the unstated goals of our clients. Unsurprisingly, they are similar to our unstated goals. Our clients want to make or save money. Our client’s project managers want to finish tasks on budget and on schedule. And, each of our client’s employees wants to impress their bosses enough to stay employed or move up the corporate ranks.

How do you figure out the unstated goals?

Nobody ever tells you to think about the motivations and politics inherent in each project. You’re supposed to just know it. But how do you ever learn to spot the unstated goals?

Just to help you out, here are some things I think about to help me deduce some of the unstated goals inherent in each project:

Think about how business works- We all know about supply and demand, but there are three principle techniques every business uses to make money.

1. Charge more for each product without raising production cost.
2. Sell more products without raising production cost.
3. Sell more or the same amount of product while cutting back production costs.

All three of these principles are operating all the time at every company that wants to be profitable. At least one of these principles is an unstated goal rumbling in the background of every project you do. Always remember this.

Businesses are made of people- Contrary to what the Supreme Court thinks, corporations and businesses are not people. Businesses are groups of people, each of whom has a personal agenda (i.e. they want something for themselves). It may be money, or prestige, or simply to do as little work as possible, but everyone has an agenda. Try to figure out your boss’, clients, and own personal agenda so you can better navigate the political minefield that is work.

People and projects follow the laws of physics- A long time ago, in a time far, far away (c.1687), Sir Isaac Newton proposed the three Laws of Motion:

1. A body is at rest, or, if in motion, moving forward in a straight line.
2. When force is applied, a body accelerates in the direction of the force. It also accelerates at a proportional speed.
3.  When two bodies collide, the force of the collision has an equal magnitude in the opposite direction.

What does this have to do with the unstated goals of cultural resource management projects? More than you would think.

First, people are inherently lazy (Law 1). They like to stay at rest. But, if you motivate them (or, get them afraid of something) they will start moving in proportion to the net force/Fear of God you put in them (Law 2). Also, if a person or project starts going wrong, a proportionate-sized shitstorm will start snowballing in a certain direction. The force of the collision between the shitstorm and the proverbial fan will be equal in magnitude. The project will then start moving in the opposite, and undesirable, direction (Law 3).

Basically, people want to do the bare minimum. But, when motivated by fear of losing their job, losing their company’s money, or losing prestige, they can do a number of things that are bad for business. Once things start going sideways, it’s difficult to get them back on track. Oftentimes, a project-sized eruption occurs and things get all mucked up.

Who’d I get mad at?

I went back into the desert and resurveyed the new APE. It didn’t take long and my company was able to renegotiate additional money from the client to finish the job. Turns out, the client’s project manager didn’t want to be late on the project so she gave the go-ahead before the project area had been approved. Evidentially, her department is frequently late and she wanted to make her boss happy.

This was a perfect example of how the unstated goals inherent in all cultural resource management projects can cause problems that cause problems. You can prevent potential delays by remembering that the scope of work isn’t the only set of goals.

Do you have any stories of how unstated goals hampered your projects? Share them with a comment below.

About the Author

Bill White has been a project archaeologist since 2002. He started his own business, Succinct Research, which is a company dedicated to helping environmental consulting businesses and individuals increase their online visibility using articles, innovative eBooks, videos, podcasts, and presentations. His well-received book, Résumé Writing for Scientists, explains the techniques recruiters use to create killer résumés that help place their clients.

You can follow the Succinct Research blog here, on Google+, and on Twitter.

#121 Should Metal Detectors be Regulated?

A response to the article, “Artifact Club: on the trail of historical treasures” published in The Bulletin online at http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20120812/NEWS0107/208120350/

As I was reading some archaeology news articles today I stumbled across this little gem.  Please, go take a look at the article before you read my comments.

Let’s start with the title.  Putting the words “artifact” and “treasures” into the same sentence sends the wrong message to the public.  This goes back to the Spike TV and National Geographic shows about artifact hunters and the message that it sends to the public.  Does everyone know that it’s illegal to take artifacts from public lands or lands that you don’t have permission to do so on?  No, they don’t.  I know some very smart people that grew up picking up “arrowheads” off their property and out on hikes on public lands.  They didn’t know it was wrong.  They still don’t know it’s wrong.  

For those that don’t know, we often only have the projectile points and debris from making projectile points to record a site with.  We can tell a lot about the people that lived or visited a site from the debris they left behind.  I’ve personally recorded many hundreds of “lithic scatters” which are just collections of debitage, or “chipped stone” that was the result of making projectile points and other tools.  If there is nothing else left except for the chipped stone debris then there isn’t much we can learn from the site other than the fact that someone did something there. With careful analysis we can sometimes discern what they might have done on that site but that’s about it.  The points (arrowheads) sometimes allow us to discern who was on the site, not just what they did there.

The article begins by talking about the historical background to the artifacts that the people in the article are finding:

“They look for places where pioneers heading west climbed from covered wagons to assess a creek crossing. Places where blue coats and gray coats camped and perhaps traded gunfire. Places where families picnicked and played at the water’s edge.”

After detailing the history that is being lost to the pubic because a few people decided to keep the artifacts (or sell them) for themselves and not let everyone know about the history they found and what it means, the article author glorifies the act by calling the artifacts “buried treasure”.  Nice.

The members of the Mid-Western Artifact Society each wear a “utility apron” to put artifacts and trash in.  There’s no GPS or any desire or effort made to provide a provenience for the artifacts.  At one point the author says, “Every item tells a story”.  Yes, they do.  Their location and their association with the other artifacts on the site also tells a story.  In fact, they tell a more complete story than one artifact, out of context, sitting in a shadow box on your bookshelf.

These club members are not always digging on private land either.  There are more than a few references to digging on public park land.  I’m not sure about local ordinances but that doesn’t sound legal.  It might be, of course, but it’s certainly not ethical.

According to the article 2,416 coins were found in June and 4,426 coins were found in May.  Astounding.

I have no problem with the events they have where coins and other artifacts are actually buried so members can have fun finding everything.  That actually sounds pretty fun.  Of course most of the buried “loot” was likely taken from legitimate archaeology sites.

The ethics section of the article discusses the club’s insistence that they follow local ordinances and always get land owner permission for private land.  They mention that property owners often will take a split on whatever is found.  This is similar to the Spike TV show.  Again, they don’t see anything wrong with what they are doing.

I know that doing pretty much anything on private land is not illegal.  And, I’m not say that it should be illegal.  People just need to be informed and educated as to the importance of artifact provenience as it pertains to the interpretation of sites.  That’s a tough thing to do, I know.  The Discovery Channel isn’t going to do it.  We have to.  Tell your friends and family why taking an artifact from a site (or moving it) will hurt our ability to interpret the site.

The last bit of the article relates a story about the group being contacted to find a lost wedding ring.  That’s a great application for a metal detector and I’m glad they were able to find it.

So, back to my post title: should metal detectors be regulated?  Maybe.  I can’t imagine too many uses for metal detectors that don’t involve hunting for artifacts.  Of course if you regulate metal detectors you’ll have to regulate shovels and trowels as well.  No one wants that!  I guess I don’t have a solution to the problem, aside from education, of course.  Education is the key to so many of our problems.  You’d think we’d have learned by now.  Guess not.

Thanks for letting me rant on this topic.  It’s upsetting that they article has such an upbeat tone and that there was no effort to contact an archaeologist to get that side of the story and an opinion on metal detecting clubs.  Again, inform your family and friends about this topic.  Don’t yell at them and don’t be a dick about it.  That attitude will get you no where.  Just tell them what we would have learned if the artifacts had stayed in place and how leaving the artifacts in place is much more valuable than cashing them in.  Tell them it’s valuable to everyone if the artifacts are left in place, not just one or several people.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the field.

#120 Return to Blogging with a Refined Perspective

Why haven’t I posted in a while?  The following may shed some light on the subject.

As some of you may know, and many of you don’t, my sister-in-law has been battling an aggressive form of ovarian cancer for almost two years now.  She was “cancer free” for nearly a year after having a stem cell transplant, chemo, brain radiation, and stomach radiation.  In April her cancer came back with a vengeance.

Jessica went back to the doctor and was receiving chemo once a week for a couple of months.  However, it was just too much for her and she felt like crap constantly.  So, her and my brother decided to stop the treatments.  Jessica’s father heard of a naturopath in Reno, Nevada that has had success with various forms of cancer so they decided to try that.

When I heard about the naturopath my skeptical spidey sense immediately kicked in.  One thing that made me OK with it was that this was a last resort.  All of her options had been exhausted.  If they had decided on this course of treatment instead of traditional treatments then I’d have stepped in and tried to do something about it.  Also, this naturopath was using a form of chemo in conjunction with different herbs and spices.

The treatment lasted a month.  We got to visit with Jessica and my nephew James (2 ½ years old) during the month they were here.  They were staying at her Uncle’s house here in Reno.  My brother even came down for a couple weeks.  It was fun and we had some good times.

We went to see Jessica and James the night before they left town.  We talked about how she would be back down in a few months for follow-up treatments.  We talked about visiting in the next couple of months.  We talked about how she felt.  It was the last time we would speak to her.

A few weeks after leaving Reno Jessica went to the hospital with severe abdominal pain.  They drained nearly 4L of fluid from her abdomen.  They also gave her three to eight weeks to live.  

That was a shock.  All of us sort of expected her to pull through.  Even though no one really survives this cancer no one in the family expected her to not make it.

We found out on a Wednesday that she didn’t have much time left.  My wife and I decided to drive up that weekend after work on Friday.  Originally we were going to work half days on Friday and drive part of the way.  We would camp somewhere in Oregon and then drive the remainder of the trip on Saturday.  By Friday morning Jessica was unconscious and the prognosis was grim.

We left earlier than intended on Friday and drove straight though.  When we arrived at my brother’s house at about 1:30 am we went straight to the bedroom.  I gave my brother a good long hug and we talked for a bit.  He hadn’t slept in almost two days and had been by her side the entire time.  I decided to stay up with him and let him get some sleep.  He only remembers getting about an hour of sleep but I think it was more like three or more.  I had a hard time staying awake but I did anyway.

Just before 0700 on August 4th, 2012 my sister-in-law passed away with my brother telling her to let go and that it would be OK.  I was sitting there in shock.  It happened so fast.

Why am I telling everyone this?  My sister-in-law was 35 years old.  Last year a friend of mine, 33, was diagnosed with colon cancer.  It was May, I think.  He passed away the day before Thanksgiving.  Someone I don’t know, but many people did, here in the Great Basin died of breast cancer, I think, just a couple months ago.  She was 33, I believe.

The point is, you never know what life is going to throw at you.  As an atheist I’m constantly concerned with my legacy.  I’m concerned with how I’ll be remembered and what I’ll leave behind when I go.  I don’t have an afterlife to look forward to so my legacy is all I have.  For me my legacy, in part, is this blog and my podcast.  Those are things that people can look back on and learn from for years to come.  For some people their legacy is their children.  Personally I think your legacy should stand on it’s own.  It’s not difficult to have children and you should’t take too much credit for their accomplishments.

I also see part of my legacy in the various archaeological databases across the nation.  My name is on site records and reports in about 14 different states.  Think about that.  Its pretty powerful.  It’s also something that no one can ever take away from you.  That worthless little can scatter you recorded at the end of the day when you just wanted to go home and rest your feet is going to have your name on it until we nuke ourselves into oblivion.  That’s awesome.

If I had a child and I found out I was going to die, or could die from whatever I have, I’d want to prepare resources for him/her to refer to later in life.  Did you see the movie “My Life” with Michael Keaton?  I think it’s from the early 90s.  He was going to die from some horrible disease and made short videos to his infant son about everything from cooking pasta to shaving.  That’s amazing.  I wish my sister-in-law had thought to do that.  I tried bringing up that subject many times over the last two years but never had the courage.  They saw me as the atheist with no hope, I’m sure, and I didn’t need to make things worse.

I wish I’d tried, though.  It’s a huge weight on me right now and I really regret not saying anything.  I’m sure they thought of it but always thought they’d have more time.

So, that’s why I haven’t been blogging lately.  I’ve just had other things on my mind and could’t really focus.  I think I’ll be back to it now.  I have some great posts lined up and I’m ready to start building that legacy again.

What would you leave behind if a semi crashed into your car tomorrow?  Think about it.  But, don’t think long.  You may not have the time.

Sorry to be so morbid but someone had to say it.

I'll miss you, Jessica.  We didn't always agree but we had fun debating.  I wish we'd been able to spend more time together over the last 15 years.  There always seemed to be "plenty of time" for getting together.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the field.

#119 Re-imagining Archaeological Site Recording

Recording a site in the Great Basin a few years ago.As my readers know, I’m an archaeologist in the Great Basin.  As you also know, I’m a huge tech geek.  My wife and I shut off our cable back in January because all we were watching was crap.  Well, I really enjoyed pretty much everything on HGTV.  That’s right.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I love watching House Hunters (International included) and Holmes on Homes.  However, now instead of watching cable TV I now watch video podcasts.

Most of the podcasts I watch are technology related.  Most of those are related to new products and new apps for iOS and Android.  I also watch the TED Talks podcast.  Every day one talk, ranging from several minutes to about twenty minutes, from TED conferences and TEDx conferences from around the world is put into the feed.  I don’t often get to watch everyday so the first day of my weekend is often spent drinking coffee and watching TED talks.

For those of you that don’t know TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design.  TED talks started in 1984 and they are devoted to “ideas worth spreading”.  There are two annual conferences and numerous independently organized TED conferences called TEDx.  The talks are inspiring and are given by people with ideas that will change the world.  They are strong and confident and nothing is more inspiring than watching TED talks.  What does this have to do with CRM archaeology?

I’ve been having more and more conversations with co-workers and other CRM professionals regarding the use of tablets in the field for site recording.  I’m starting to feel like a broken record when I talk about this but I truly believe that a paradigm shift is coming in archaeology.  Maybe the TED talks are convincing me that recording a two-can site with an iPad will change the world but I don’t care.

The fundamental problem with the conversations I’m having lies with the thinking process of the people I’m talking to.  In the IMACS states (see my post here) we type up site forms in an MS Word document.  Most people I talk to seem to think that recording via a tablet would mean typing up that Word document in the field.  Let me say that again: people think we should be filling out Word documents in the field.  That is the worst possible solution and I’ll tell you why.

Tablets represent a shift in the way we create and consume electronic media.  We need to have a corresponding shift in the way we record sites.  No longer are we restricted to the state site form template or the template that our companies have created.  We no longer have to jump around the paper site form to record a site in an efficient way.  Most Crew Chiefs have a certain way they record every site.  They have a particular order of operations.  Having a plan of action is a good way to ensure that you’ve covered everything and that you didn’t miss anything.  With a tablet you are able to adjust the form on the fly to suit your needs and the needs of the site.  With a tablet you are able to freely record the site in the most efficient way.

I’m currently using the TapFormsHD app (link to the App) for iPad to record sites.  Eventually I’d like to use an app created specifically for recording sites using the Nevada IMACS Site Form or the full IMACS site form.  The app would be designed to collect every single piece of information required on the form quickly and efficiently.  It would output in a variety of ways including as an MS Word document that would need minimal editing in the office to complete.  The editing should take no more than 30 minutes for the average site.  That’s pretty quick compared to the three hours required for digitizing and editing that most companies budget for.

So, will tablets change the world as far as archaeological site recording is concerned?  Maybe.  One thing I’m certain of, though, is that we need to move to a place where we are digitally recording sites because that is where the world is going.  We have the opportunity right now to choose to be innovators in this area or to play catch up five years (or less) down the road when clients expect us to be fully digital.  Archaeology has always played catch-up where technology is concerned.  Let’s help the next generation come into a field that is as technologically advanced as the world they grew up in was.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the field.