Digitizing Notes: Another Way to Analyze Archaeology

Hi there, it’s Meghan. I am a graduating senior at Western and I hope to be attending graduate school in the near future! I am one of this past summer’s field school students, and as Kaylee mentioned I am currently working in the lab digitizing field school notes. The process of digitizing notes is not as thrilling as working in the field, but the work is necessary and important.

Keeping detailed notes in the field

The field notes taken for each unit are a way to analyze not only the work completed during the season, but a way to determine the work that will need to be done in future excavations. During one of the first weeks of the field school we had a rainy day and since archaeologists never take a day off work, the field school students were tasked with identifying new units to open during this past summer. We all rushed to the binders full of field notes from previous years, because the binders held information on which units were previously excavated, but more importantly what was excavated from those units and past student’s recommendations. The field notes provided us with a way to examine and identify which units we thought would be viable to open or even re-open.

Transferring paper notes to digitized
notes in the lab

The digitized notes create a new way to access the field notes that can be more easily read. When we are out in the field we all try our hardest to keep our field notes safe and clean. For example, whenever it would rain, our field notes would be the first item my partner and I would grab. However, we are not perfect, so our notes may be illegible or dirt-smeared. Another reason to have a digitized copy of the field notes is that they are a copy, so if something ever happened to the notes, there is a back-up version. Field notes are important in either form, paper or digitized, because they provide a link to the past, so that future archaeologists can continue to work forward.

Once I complete digitizing the field notes I will be helping Kaylee create our newest brochure! I am excited to determine the Project’s recent outcomes and go through all of the photos taken this past summer. The next big event coming up for me is Michigan Archaeology Day, which is October 28^th this year at the Michigan History Museum in Lansing, MI. I attended last year and it was absolutely incredible to see so many people excited about archaeology from all over the state and the country! I hope to see all of you there! 

Meghan