archaeological excavation In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

, a plan is a drawn record of

feature Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (machine learning), in statistics: individual measurable properties of the phenome ...

s and artifacts in the horizontal plane.

Overview

An archaeological plan can either take the form of * A "multi context" plan, which is drawn with many

context In semiotics, linguistics, sociology and anthropology, context refers to those objects or entities which surround a ''focal event'', in these disciplines typically a communicative event, of some kind. Context is "a frame that surrounds the event ...

s on it to show relationships between these features as part of some

phase Phase or phases may refer to: Science *State of matter, or phase, one of the distinct forms in which matter can exist *Phase (matter), a region of space throughout which all physical properties are essentially uniform *Phase space, a mathematica ...

, or * Alternatively, a single context plan with a single feature is drawn. Excavated features are drawn in three dimensions using drawing conventions such as

hachures Hachures () are an older mode of representing relief. They show orientation of slope, and by their thickness and overall density they provide a general sense of steepness. Being non-numeric, they are less useful to a scientific survey than cont ...

. Single context planning, developed by the

Museum of London London Museum (known from 1976 to 2024 as the Museum of London) is a museum in London, covering the history of the city from prehistoric to modern times, with a particular focus on social history. The Museum of London was formed in 1976 by ama ...

, has become the professional norm. The basic advantage of single context planning is that context plans are drawn on "transparent perma-trace paper" and can be overlaid for later re-interpretation. Instead of single-context plans, m''ulti-context plans'' can comprise complete sites, trenches or individual features. In the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, the scale of the plans is usually 1:20. They are linked to the site recording system by including known grid points and height readings, taken with a

dumpy level A level is an optical instrument used to establish or verify points in the same horizontal plane in a process known as '' levelling''. It is used in conjunction with a levelling staff to establish the relative height or levels (the vertical se ...

or a

total station A total station or total station theodolite is an electronic/optical instrument used for surveying and building construction. It is an electronic transit theodolite integrated with electronic distance measurement (EDM) to measure both vertic ...

(see

surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the land, terrestrial Plane (mathematics), two-dimensional or Three-dimensional space#In Euclidean geometry, three-dimensional positions of Point (geom ...

). Excavation of a site by the removal of human-made deposits in the reverse order in which they were created is the preferred excavation method and is referred to as stratigraphic area excavation "in plan" as opposed to excavation "in section." Plan and section drawings have an interpretive function and are part of the recording system, because the draughts-person makes conscious decisions about what should be included or emphasised.

Archaeological plan topics

The grid

It is common and good practice to lay out a grid of 5m squares in excavations to facilitate planning. This grid is marked out on-site with grid pegs that form the baselines for tapes and other planning tools to aid the drawing of plans. It is also common practice to plan for each context on a separate piece of perma-trace that conforms to these 5m grid squares. This is part of the

single context recording Single context recording was initially developed by Ed Harris and Patrick Ottaway in 1976, from a suggestion by Laurence Keen. It was further developed by the Department of Urban Archaeology (Museum of London) from where it was then exported, ...

system ''(see Fig 1.)'' The site grid should be tied to a national geomatic database, like the

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

Planning drawing conventions

Archaeological planners use various symbols to denote characteristics of features and contexts, and while conventions vary depending on the practitioner, the following are representative:

Pre-excavation and base plans

On sites with little stratigraphic depth, a pre-excavation multi-context plan is sometimes made of all visible features before any excavation is carried out. This helps in planning strategy since stratigraphy problems on rural sites are minimal as

features Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (machine learning), in statistics: individual measurable properties of the phenome ...

often

cut Cut or CUT may refer to: Common uses * The act of cutting, the separation of an object into two through acutely directed force ** A type of wound ** Cut (archaeology), a hole dug in the past ** Cut (clothing), the style or shape of a garment ** ...

into the

natural Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part ...

, minimizing issues of inter-cutting

. Conversely, planning a multi-context urban site is difficult to achieve on a multi-context plan as the features and deposits, when planned, will obscure each other on the same planning sheet.

Critics of pre-excavation planning

Pre-excavation plans have been critiqued for their limited use on urban or deeply stratified sites. They have also been attacked in professional archaeology, where unscrupulous operators are described as a misused tool to give the impression that the

archaeological record The archaeological record is the body of physical (not written) evidence about the past. It is one of the core concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record. Archaeological t ...

for a given site has been dealt with adequately. This critical point of view contends that comparisons between pre-and post-excavation plans can demonstrate that a site has not been comprehensively excavated based on a pre-ex plan alone. There is a pronounced difference between the two planning phases in many cases. Although many features may be visible at ground level following machining, the proper limits of features are often not so initially discernible until the area of the feature is fully cleaned and subsequently excavated, revealing further features and relationships lower in the

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is cal ...

Overview

Archaeological plan topics

The grid

Planning drawing conventions

Pre-excavation and base plans

Critics of pre-excavation planning

See also

References

Further reading