On the first day, Nancy had used the laser transit to set up a grid line for the overall site, and from this we laid out a perpendicular grid line over to our site. We used 50 meter measuring tapes to triangulate and set up a grid system in our site. We marked it with surveying pins and laid out one meter grid squares with string for most of the site features. That way the spatial relationship of each feature or artifact to every other one is known. The note taker was responsible for making sure every feature was mapped and described, and although she could ask other people to take notes on various features, she had ultimate responsibility for the site notes.
Notes are absolutely vital.
Without notes, we'd just be an organized group of pot hunters. So you try not to move anything until it's been described. Your notes have to describe everything so that you can go back to them and come to conclusions about the culture you are trying to find out about. So we do word descriptions, sketches, stratigraphic profiles, and more notes. We map in major features and artifacts.