Excavate.it

The workspace

The Database

Every record an excavation produces lives in linked Notion databases: finds, stratigraphic units, photographs, storage boxes and reports. Here is what working with them looks like, view by view.

  1. A dashboard totalling 258 stratigraphic units, 1,342 findings and 45 contexts, broken down by material, by period and by year found

    Totals drawn live from the records the team fills in

    A dashboard counts stratigraphic units, finds and contexts, and breaks them down by material, period and year found. It updates as the team adds records, with nothing to recount at the end of the season.

  2. A board of stratigraphic units grouped by sector, each card carrying its field photograph, its number and a line on what was removed

    Stratigraphic units as the team recorded them, sector by sector

    Each card carries the unit's field photograph, its number and a line on what was removed, grouped under the sector it belongs to.

  3. A gallery of coins, each card with its photograph against a scale bar, catalogue number, year found and period

    The same records, arranged for whoever is looking

    One database, many views: a gallery of photographs for the finds specialist, a table for the registrar, a board for the director. Each view filters and groups the same records without copying them.

  4. One find open in Notion, with its sherd photographs, the drawn sketch, its locus, trench and square, the box it is stored in, and the ceramic analysis, all on the same record

    Everything about a find on one page, each field linked to its unit, trench and box

    Photographs, drawings, provenance, the storage box and the specialist analysis sit on the find's own record, and every link leads to the record it names.

  5. The record of a stratigraphic unit with its photographs and description, and at its foot two team members agreeing that soil samples from this locus will be analysed

    The team's questions and decisions stay on the record they are about

    Questions are asked and settled in comments on the unit or find itself, so a decision made in the trench is still there when the report is written.

Getting set up

We move you in, and stay while you settle

Adopting a way of recording is the hard part, not the software. We bring your data across and stay with your team until recording in it is faster than what you did before.

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