16th February 2014, 05:54 PM
There are plenty of equally valid ways of digging a site other than single context - I believe I'm right in saying that in some countries people still dig boxes, for instance? And the only time I bother allocating context numbers when e.g. borehole monitoring is if there are finds coming out (our finds system would implode without them) otherwise it's irrelevant and just wastes a lot of paper (I'd have to copy every entry off my Borehole Monitoring Sheet onto additional Context Sheets without being able to add any additional info - pointless!). The important unit in that example is the borehole deposit sequence, treated as a whole, and what it shows in comparison to other nearby deposit sequences. The old system of feature numbers with fills as sub-units of the feature (e.g. Pit 6 Layer F) worked fine too, at least on rural plough-truncated sites without the inconvenience of stratigraphy, and certainly seemed to be less of a problem for the 'number-challenged' both on site and in PX. Four and five digit context numbers present excessive opportunities for c**k-ups, as anyone who's written up a big project will be aware, on the current job we're stipulating that, after the site code, Field Nos come second in the designation hierarchy (its a 19km linear site, so handily divided into lots of fields)so that we've got some chance a year or two down the line to work out what context number was really meant (it's amazing what can slip past on-site checking)...nothing's allowed to leave site without the Field No written on it.
One problem with Single Context Recording is that it's rather specific and makes recording stuff like topography, drainage (i.e. how the archaeology fits into the wider landscape, and what happens over the hedge) and the like rather difficult, if you see what I mean? Not an obvious way around that, although I've always had the nagging feeling that SCR may not be the best way to do things. Bit like there's lots of observations I'd like to stick on various HERs, except there's no way their fill-the-boxes-in systems could record it
Barkingdigger's right, what most people use these days isn't the original 'pure' form of Single Context Recording anyway, but various formats adapted to each unit's local needs.
Think am rambling (hangover) so I'll get back to my grave gazetteer and analysis... [coincidentally another thing not helped by Single Context, am having to treat everything by Gazetteer No in order to make it comprehensible]
One problem with Single Context Recording is that it's rather specific and makes recording stuff like topography, drainage (i.e. how the archaeology fits into the wider landscape, and what happens over the hedge) and the like rather difficult, if you see what I mean? Not an obvious way around that, although I've always had the nagging feeling that SCR may not be the best way to do things. Bit like there's lots of observations I'd like to stick on various HERs, except there's no way their fill-the-boxes-in systems could record it
Barkingdigger's right, what most people use these days isn't the original 'pure' form of Single Context Recording anyway, but various formats adapted to each unit's local needs.
Think am rambling (hangover) so I'll get back to my grave gazetteer and analysis... [coincidentally another thing not helped by Single Context, am having to treat everything by Gazetteer No in order to make it comprehensible]