Archaeologists record stratigraphic excavations by context. We have yet to meet an archaeologist who does not give stratigraphic contexts unique numbers – it’s at the very heart of archaeological recording.
But…we have yet to meet two archaeologists who structure their numbering conventions precisely the same way. And we’re willing to bet, after meeting quite a few archaeologists, that you have strong opinions about the way you create numbers and what they encode. And that you would like to keep the way you number, which works for you and the site you are working on. Kiosk can do that. And not because we leave you with a bunch of free-input text boxes, but because Kiosk can automatically generate numbers and identifiers of different kinds according to different rules.
Some examples? Some of the projects we support use a running list of four-digit numbers for the whole site. The next context, independent of where it is located or what it is related to, gets the next number. There is only one context (or locus, or stratigraphic unit – you might have strong feelings about terminology, too) 1026 on the whole site, or even on a series of sites. Kiosk can do that, assigning runs of numbers by iPad or by user or by trench or by site to insure that the same number is never used twice. Some projects also add prefixes to distinguish the area, or the year of excavation. Kiosk can do that, too.
Others of our projects assign context numbers hierarchically per unit. So in trench MA there would be contexts MA-001, MA-002, etc. And in trench MB, likewise there would be MB-001, MB-002, etc. In that case the uniqueness of the identifier relies on including the trench name in the number, and the resulting context number encodes some semantic information letting you know which trench it is in. Kiosk can do that: create the next context in the trench and it will be automatically called what it should be.
Likewise, different projects have different workflows and numbering conventions for artifacts. Some of our projects tag all collected materials simply with the context number, using the material as a qualifier. In that case ceramics might be collected and bagged over days, and the bag tags would be identical, all reading, say, “1026 ceramic”. Some projects tag each bag separately, for instance with successive days of ceramics from the same context labeled MB-002-1, MB-002-2, etc. Kiosk can do all that, automatically generating artifact records with the type of number you expect.
Pure MOLAS? Sure we can do that. The user interface will be Kiosk’s tab-based Filemaker recording. But you are gathering the data just as you would on paper sheets – only with automatic numbering and integrated photographs making your life much easier – and if you need recognizable PDFs that look just like your old notebooks, well, you can create reports from your data that map onto whatever form you want.
Which kinds of numbers are best? We can’t decide! We wouldn’t dream of imposing one system on everyone! If you’re starting a new project and you want to talk through what might work best, we offer both an out of the box configuration and cheerful consultation – we have seen enough to know the implications of choices on this front. But if you want, as nearly everyone we have worked with so far has wanted, to keep your familiar numbering strategy, Kiosk can do that. If your numbers work differently than what we already support, we can write new configuration rules – work with us, so recording works for you.