Documentation of Archaeological Artifacts & or Features
by
Robert L. Hafey
As the old saying goes “A picture is worth a thousand words” could never be so true as it is today especially if it is “geotagged” A good example would be all of the information contained on a picture using the Theodolite Application used on an iPhone 4.
One of the main goals of on-site curation is to be able to leave all artifacts in-situ after curation and yet have a complete catalog of all artifacts found on a site. Materials used in this process are: 1. iPhone 4 using the Theodolite Application with geotagging capabilities, 2. MacBook Pro laptop computer and 3. the Topo Maps Application.
The below picture is of the McCutchen Corral at 4X from a mountain above it. The “geotagging is present in the upper left of the photo and in the metadata file of the picture. The “Position” UTM data is the UTM of the position from which the photo was take and taken from a compass heading of 60 degrees.
The data (UTM’s or Lat/Lon) are set as preferences set by the user in the “preferences options” in the Theodolite Application. When selecting the photo the figure on the right is brought up where you can check the (Locate) button which will reveal the position in Google Earth as pictured below.
In this particular case the photo taken from the center of the corral was selected for the GPS illustration. Note the geotagged information in the upper left corner of the illustration.
As you can see from the photos of the above artifacts the geotagged information is very difficult to read; however, it is in the metadata of the photograph and can be brought up.
At the time of taking the photographs it is recommended that you use the Topo Maps application to make actual waypoints of each of the features or artifacts.
For any questions contact:
Robert L. Hafey
hafeyrobertlouis@yahoo.com
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