Drawing up Archaeological Site Plans

Date: June 22, 2007
Entry by: Joe Hoyt, Maritime Archaeologist, East Carolina University

Following fieldwork there is still a great deal of work to be done. Information collected by divers has to be transferred from underwater slates into a cohesive format that will makes sense to someone other than the diver. This process is one of the most time-consuming of the practical phases of archaeological research, but can also be one of the most exciting. While diving on a site it is difficult to get an overall impression of the site's layout, usually due to visibility or simply the sheer mass of the site. In piecing it all together later, a greater understanding of the wreck site is unveiled.

Work done on the Flint, Fay, Stevens, Van Valkenburg, and Warner has taken considerable time to congeal into finalized interpretive products, but there has been quite a bit of progress made. The Flint site plan is near completion. Each measurement and drawing recorded underwater was transferred onto a master plan, a large roll of graph paper on which all information is pieced together to form a plan view of the wreck site. Prior to this step, a scale conversion is decided upon. In the cases of these sites, we used either 1/2 or 1/4 scale. This means that each foot in reality would be equal to 1/2 or 1/4 of an inch on the master plan. Each feature is then painstakingly added to the plan, which eventually comes together to look like a shipwreck.

This process is as frustrating as it is rewarding and the master plan usually has about a thousand lines that are erased and redrawn until it is correct. When the master plan is completed, a finished inked version is then created as the next step in the documentation process. This is a very clean and archival-quality document that is produced on mylar, a kind of plastic film that is waterproof and difficult to tear. This last step is essentially just a simple tracing of the site plan. Though it may sound easy, it is here that the fine details are put in to create a presentable product.

Different thicknesses of ink pens are used to illustrate different features with appropriate line weights. Once all of the structure is in place, however, it can appear somewhat confusing. Black lines on a white background can also be difficult to look at. For this reason, a technique called stippling is employed, which helps the structure to stand out. These site plans will eventually be digitized, labeled and transferred onto various interpretive materials that will allow divers to pick out the key features of these wrecks and show non-divers their cultural resources.

Site plan of the Oscar T. Flint

Students drafting the site plan of the Oscar T. Flint

Student Sarah Newman inking the site plan of the Joseph Fay