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Just noticed how much field survey methods have changed since I started digging
I was looking through some old site photos from back in 2009 and the difference is wild. Back then, we used to walk transects with just a compass, a notebook, and a GPS unit that couldn't hold a signal under tree cover. Now, even for a small survey at a site near my hometown of Tuscaloosa, we're running RTK GPS and drones for aerial photogrammetry. The level of detail we can get from ground penetrating radar now is just crazy compared to the old magnetometer setups we used ten years ago. I think the big shift came around 2015 when the gear finally got affordable enough for university crews. What really gets me is how much faster we can map a site compared to my first field school at the Jones Creek dig. Has anyone else noticed how the tech shift changed the pace of fieldwork, or is it just me?
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juliawalker1mo ago
Oh man, I gotta push back on "faster." You said the gear got affordable for university crews around 2015, but I swear half my field time now is just sitting around waiting for the drone battery to charge or the RTK base station to get a lock. My first dig in 2012 we ran a full pedestrian survey with just a compass and a buddy shouting bearings across a plowed field. We covered way more ground in a day than I do now babysitting a drone. And that GPR stuff? Sure the data is prettier, but I've wasted whole afternoons chasing false positives from wet clay that an old school shovel test would've sorted in ten minutes. I miss the days when the hardest part was your pencil breaking.
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seth_carr8d ago
Had a buddy get a call from his crew lead about a weird blob on the GPR readout once (they were doing a survey outside Mobile). Turns out it was just a rusted out lawnmower blade buried two feet down, not the prehistoric feature they thought. He spent three days digging test pits based on that thing before they figured it out. The old school crews would've walked right past that junk with a shovel and a trowel, saved a ton of time. Makes you wonder if all the pretty data is worth the extra headache sometimes.
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