Archaeology... it's the future!

[Hal Dalwood]

Yes, we have trialled PDAs as a replacement for paper context records. They were pretty universally hated, there was trenchant resistance to using them, and our PDA-based approach has been dropped. They were just too small and inflexible, and didn't allow the full range of data to be recorded, as noted by mercenary. In the medium term we are sticking to paper context records on site.

I googled 'rugged wireless tablet PCs' and was impressed by the gee-whizzery; perhaps someone with a lot more technical insight could comment on whether there has been much uptake of this type of kit for site recording.

Hal Dalwood

Bad archaeologist, worse husband

[mercenary]

Perhaps someone involved with the English Heritage Dover Castle and Richborough excavations can comment on how the Intrasys system and associated gee-whiz hardware is/has worked? I was involved with the trials for this system, but sadly the gee-whiz hardware let us down.

[BAJR Host]

http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/29/aipte...-a-budget/

I use one of these... a paper record and a pdf version too!... I have tried out the handwriting recog.. but is a bit poor... it was going to be good for entering form data, however, I found it a bit hit and miss.

However... for adding sketches etc.. I did find it very good.! and good battery life too! 72 hours!



"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[Weegie]

Hullo Merc,

Only just seen your posting, and will reply properly when I've finished today's round of meetings, but in short, Intrasis worked very well indeed at Richborough and Dover. The proof of the pudding will be in the assessment, but it's looking good.

Brian

Resistance is futile. Your project documentation will be MoRPHE-compliant.

[trowelfodder]

This is just my opinion not that of English Heritage:

I was a digger at Richborough and Dover, and was initially sceptical of intrasis but after 9 weeks I have to admit I really quite liked the system.

Far from paperless though as all info was put onto context and other sheets first and then imput into the system. But there was a very good system of back-ups and all the sites data was stored both on the network and on a memory stick, and a copy sent back to the office each week so the dangers of loosing all data were actualy far less than with a paper record.

The system took a little getting used to but was really usefull to have all the data easily assessable on site and in one place for quick cross referencing and simple things like looking back at photos etc, and in theory the archive should be ready to be looked at straight away in the office slashing the lagg in site work completion and production of the report.

It would be much easier to have palm tops etc as at the moment you are doubling up on time spent by creating the paper record first.

I dont know how well this would transfer to commercial archaeology as it is a huge initial outlay for the licence, equipment etc, and essentially begins post ex on site where staff may be too pushed for time to properly use the system. May also be difficult on large sites as if there is not a similar number of computors to staff bottlenecks will develop - rain days spring immediately to mind!!

But once you get the hang of it it is a really useful system.

[Weegie]

Thanks Trowelfodder, that was a fair and helpful summary. The aim is to produce a more intelligible and useful site archive, and thereby to speed assessment and analysis.

It does mean a lot more work in recording and site archive completion, but the payoff should be in faster analyses, as the Swedish experience with Intrasis suggests.

Brian

Resistance is futile. Your project documentation will be MoRPHE-compliant.

[BAJR Host]

http://blogs.thehumanjourney.net/finds/entry/9

intersting comment on blog


"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[Weegie]

Yes, never done a FOI response before, which was in itself an interesting experience. We did hold a tech day at Dover to show what we were doing with Intrasis to colleagues from a number of other organisations, and remain happy to discuss this with anyone who'll talk to us.

Brian

Resistance is futile. Your project documentation will be MoRPHE-compliant.

[drpeterwardle]

What year is it 1988?

Reading these posts about EH trialling on site software I feel I've gone back 20 years and I am a mere 32 years of age again. Now what was the CEU software called back in those days Delihah or something similar I think.

Now back to automating measurements from rectified digital photographs!.

The future is not a digital version of a context sheet but the automated capture of all attribute type data. Automatted planning or at least building recording is available now via laser scanner and soon by total station.

Dr Peter Wardle

[Oxbeast]

I am slightly sceptical about automated capture of site data. I've done some stuff with LIDAR algorithms which are supposed to identify the archaeology and it was not really very satisfactory. There are basically two sensitivities: not sensitive enough (missing the archaeology) and too sensitive (too much 'noise' in the data).

While you can get total stations which can do 'point cloud' building recording, they cost plenty of money (around 50K at the mo, I think, though they'll probably be giving them away with kelloggs soon).