How Field Archaeology works

Field Archaeology is a spatial research environment for England. It brings the evidence for a landscape question onto one map, lets you test one dataset against another, and keeps every source and its citation with the work, from the first look at the ground to the finished report.

Last updated 25 October 2026

The problem: evidence in pieces

The evidence for England's past already exists, and much of it is published openly. But it is fragmented. The terrain model is on one service, the historic maps on another and the national list of protected sites on a third. Aerial mapping, the Historic Environment Records, finds data, place names, Domesday and the tithe surveys each sit on their own website, in their own format and under their own licence.

The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists' standard for desk-based assessment names six kinds of source a study should consider: archaeological databases, historical documents, cartographic and pictorial documents, aerial photographs, geotechnical information, and secondary and statutory sources. They are held by national heritage bodies, local authorities' Historic Environment Records, museums, universities, archives, libraries and the Ordnance Survey, among others (Chartered Institute for Archaeologists 2020, Annex 1).

One question, twelve datasets

Take one landscape question: is a bank that shows on the LiDAR a Roman road, a medieval boundary or a nineteenth-century field edge? A careful answer would look at least at these, each listed here as the atlas's own Sources and licences page lists it:

That is twelve datasets from more than ten publishers and projects, under six different sets of terms, before a word of the answer is written. Finds recorded by the public are held apart again, in the Portable Antiquities Scheme's own database under its own terms (Portable Antiquities Scheme 2026). Across the whole atlas, the Sources and licences page lists 32 datasets, 17 of them under the Open Government Licence and the rest under nine other sets of terms; the 28 that cover England come from 19 publishers, projects and communities.

Bringing them together has meant finding each one, downloading it or connecting to its service, putting it on the British National Grid and styling it in a geographic information system (GIS), then keeping a note of where each layer came from and on what terms. That takes GIS skills not every student or researcher has had the chance to learn, and citing every source properly at the end is slow work of its own. We know of no published measure of how long all this takes, so we quote none: measuring it is the first aim of our research programme.

One spatial research environment

Field Archaeology puts that evidence in one place and keeps it answerable to its sources. It does three things.

• The evidence sits together. The Environment Agency's 1 m LiDAR in twelve views, eight Ordnance Survey editions from 1885 to 1961, the national heritage records and the research datasets are layers on one map of England. Layers can be faded over one another, so a bank on the LiDAR is read against the old maps and the records at the same spot, not in another window.
• It can be interrogated. Ask what lies within an area or a buffer, find the nearest recorded site of each type, count records by period and by monument type, set two or three views side by side, or step back through every map edition at one point. These are spatial questions put to the evidence, and each answer is a table or a figure to keep, cite and export. Most of these tools are in development, as the feature list shows.
• It cites itself. Every record card names its source, gives the record's own number, linked to the original entry where there is one, and its National Grid reference, and has a Cite button that copies a Harvard reference. Every exported row names its dataset, publisher and licence, and every report ends with its sources and licences.

It is not a GIS, and it does not try to be one: it works beside QGIS and ArcGIS. Its exports open in both on the British National Grid (EPSG:27700), and it reads your own data. Nor is it a Historic Environment Record. It shows which of England's 83 HERs covers a place and how to ask it for a search, and every report says what it leaves out.

How an investigation runs

Landscape research moves from a question to the evidence, from the evidence to an interpretation, and from the interpretation to a report that others can check. In Field Archaeology each step has its tools, named below as they appear in the atlas.

1. Create an investigation. Start a project in Research projects (in development), with a name and a colour. A project holds the sites and features you record, the people you share it with and the gazetteer you export.
2. Define the research question. Write it into the project's Research question. Everyone the project is shared with sees it, so the question travels with the evidence gathered for it.
3. Select the evidence. Find the place by grid reference, postcode or place name, then turn on what the question needs from the Layers menu: LiDAR relief and its eleven further views, Historic maps, the heritage records, the research datasets, and satellite imagery, including dated Wayback imagery and Sentinel-2. Ask about an area (in development) gathers every record from the open datasets within the view, a drawn area, a circle of 100 m to 5 km, a saved mark or a project item, with counts by period and by site type in the FISH terms, and the nearest of each type with its distance and bearing. Records in view (in development) lists what is on the map, to sort, filter and read with a keyboard or a screen reader.
4. Analyse the landscape. Compare views (in development) sets two or three synced maps side by side, and Map regression (in development) gives every map edition at the crosshair, oldest first, then today's map, satellite and LiDAR, as a figure sheet. The Elevation profile reads a height every metre along a saved line of up to 5 km, and Hybrid LiDAR 3D shows the ground in three dimensions. My maps (in development) places your own scans, geophysics plots and excavation plans on the ground by control points, with an affine or a similarity fit and the error at each point in metres. The Fieldwalking grid (in development) lays out squares of 10, 20 or 50 m on the National Grid.
5. Record observations. Each item in a project is a point, a line, an area or a circle, with a title, a site type and a period from the FISH lists, the evidence behind it (any of 18 kinds, from LiDAR and cropmarks to excavation, PAS records and field visits), a confidence (Certain, Probable, Possible or Doubtful) and a status (Proposed, Checked, Verified on the ground or Rejected). My marks keeps quicker notes with the layers that were on. Field recording (in development) adds GPS points with photographs, sketches and notes, and walkover tracks, to a project in the field, even with no signal.
6. Attach sources. Each item carries its References: HER and NHLE numbers, archive references and publications. Cite copies a reference from any record card. A project can take in an HER extract or your own records from CSV, TSV, GeoJSON, KML, GPX, a zipped shapefile or a GeoPackage.
7. Work with colleagues. Share a project by email with colleagues as editors or viewers; the database enforces the roles. A lecturer sets and marks work through Classes (in development), and a department's lead manages its people through Your institution (in development).
8. Generate the report. An Area report covers the view or a drawn area up to 20 km across in eight sections, among them designated heritage assets, listed buildings and features mapped from the air, and ends with the HER to ask, what the report does not include, and its sources and licences. The Desk-based assessment builder (in development) takes a site boundary through the study area, the records kept or left out and the numbered figures to a print-ready report that sets out its limitations, above all that it is no substitute for an HER search.
9. Export or share. Export this view gives CSV, a zipped shapefile or GeoJSON, in EPSG:27700 and in latitude and longitude. A project's gazetteer goes out as CSV, GeoJSON or KML, and GeoPackage (in development) writes a project, or the records in an area, into one OGC GeoPackage 1.3 file, built in the browser. LiDAR heights come as GeoTIFF, and Print a map to scale works from 1:1,250 to 1:25,000. A Saved view (in development) is a link that reopens the exact map, with a Harvard reference for the view and one for every dataset it drew on, at the version used; Export references (in development) writes them all as RIS or BibTeX.

Speed and rigour

Any research tool can claim to save time and to improve the work. We make neither claim as a number yet. Both are what the research programme is set up to measure.

Speed

The time that matters is the time from a question to a body of evidence that is assembled, checked and cited. The programme is designed to measure it with the same people answering comparable questions by their usual route and in Field Archaeology: the minutes to assemble the evidence, the minutes to cite it, the sources consulted and the datasets used. Until those results exist, this page gives no figure.

Rigour

The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists asks a desk-based assessment for ‘a confidence rating or statement on the reliability of sources used’, and says that ‘a list of all primary and secondary sources used, as well as potentially relevant sources not consulted, must be given’ (Chartered Institute for Archaeologists 2020, Annex 2). Field Archaeology is built so that this record is kept as the work is done, not rebuilt at the end:

• each project item carries a confidence, a status and the kinds of evidence behind it (in development);
• each report lists its sources and licences and says what it does not include;
• each LiDAR view has a written method, which goes into reports, prints and downloads, so a figure can be described in a methods section and drawn again;
• a saved view keeps the versions of the datasets it drew on, so a map figure can be cited and opened again as it was (in development);
• grid references and British National Grid exports are to use OSTN15, the Ordnance Survey's transformation, agreeing with the Ordnance Survey's own results to about 0.1 m (in development). Today the Helmert transformation is used, which can put a point a few metres from where OSTN15 would.

Whether this makes the work more reliable is also for the programme to show. It will ask participants to rate their confidence in their conclusions, and check the sources they consulted against a list of the relevant ones drawn up in advance.

What it does, feature by feature

Each feature, with what it does and why it matters for research. Those marked (in development) come with the academic release; the rest are in the pilot today.

Evidence on one map

• LiDAR in twelve views. The Environment Agency's 1 m terrain model as the Agency's own hillshade and eleven further views, each with its method written down. No single view shows everything: in one comparison, no single technique recorded more than 77 per cent of features (Bennett et al. 2012, as summarised by Historic England 2018). LiDAR visualisations compares them.
• Historic maps. Eight Ordnance Survey editions from 1885 to 1961, laid over the ground and today's map. Change through time is read in place, with no sheet to scan or georeference.
• Heritage records. The National Heritage List for England, Historic England's Aerial Investigation and Mapping, Heritage at Risk, the Cornwall and Scilly HER, hillforts, Roman roads, Domesday places, Devon's tithe fields and more. The known record of a place sits on the ground it describes.
• Record cards that cite themselves. Source, the record's own number, linked to the original entry where there is one, its National Grid reference and Cite, on every card. The reference is made where the evidence is read, not pieced together later.
• From the field to the record (in development, to be piloted through 2026 and 2027). Digs and finds recorded at source by metal detectorists are to reach researchers de-identified, never public, with exact findspots only for organisations we have verified, together with the ground each detectorist searched. It matters because detectorists found 94 per cent of the finds the Portable Antiquities Scheme recorded in 2024 (British Museum 2026), and because these finds would come with their context and with a record of where people searched and found nothing: opportunistic search with its effort measured, not survey, for which we found no published equivalent.

Spatial questions

• Ask about an area (in development). Every record from the open datasets within an area, a buffer or a circle, counted by period and by site type, with the nearest of each type. The map becomes a table that can be tested, kept in a project and cited, in the record's own words.
• Records in view (in development). The records on the map as a list to sort, filter and read with a keyboard or a screen reader. What the map shows can be worked through without seeing the map.
• Compare views and Map regression (in development). Two or three synced maps side by side, and every map edition at one point, oldest first, as a figure sheet. Change through time becomes a figure for a report.
• Elevation profile and Hybrid LiDAR 3D. A height every metre along a line of up to 5 km, as CSV, and the ground in three dimensions. A bank or a terrace is measured rather than judged by eye.

Recording and your own evidence

• Research projects (in development). Sites and features recorded with FISH site types and periods, 18 kinds of evidence, a confidence and a status, shared as editor or viewer and exported as a gazetteer. An interpretation is recorded in shared terms, with how sure it is, so that others can test it.
• My marks. Pins, lines, areas and circles with a note and the layers that were on, exported as KML. A quick note keeps the context it was made in.
• Your own data. CSV, GeoJSON, KML, GPX or a zipped shapefile of up to 50,000 features, read on your device and not uploaded unless you save it. Your own evidence sits beside the public record without leaving your device.
• My maps (in development). Scans, geophysics plots and excavation plans placed on the ground by moving, turning and scaling, by their four corners, by control points or by their world file, and exported for QGIS or ArcGIS with a note of their accuracy. An old plan joins the evidence with its error stated in metres.
• Field recording and the Fieldwalking grid (in development). GPS points with photographs, sketches and notes, walkover tracks, and finds counted in squares of 10, 20 or 50 m on the National Grid, saved even with no signal. Fieldwork goes straight into the project whose question it answers.
• Your files. A private store of 500 MB for each person, up to 25 MB a file, for reports and data. The work and its outputs stay together.

Reports, citations and exports

• Area report. What the open datasets record in a view or a drawn area up to 20 km across, in eight sections, ending with the HER to ask, what the report does not include, and its sources and licences; print it, save it as a PDF or download its rows. A starting point that states its own limits.
• Desk-based assessment (in development). A site boundary, a study area, a numbered gazetteer with distances, figures with the National Grid, a scale and a north arrow, and a print-ready report with its limitations, sources and references. Figures are numbered and on the National Grid, and the sources are listed, as the CIfA standard asks; the assessment itself is still yours to write. Desk-based assessment sets out the parts.
• Saved views (in development). A link that reopens the map exactly as it was, with a Harvard reference and a reference for every dataset it drew on, at its version. A map figure becomes citable and repeatable.
• Export references (in development). Every dataset, and the view, as RIS or BibTeX, for Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley and LaTeX. The bibliography comes from the work, not from memory.
• Exports for GIS. Export this view as CSV, a zipped shapefile or GeoJSON in EPSG:27700, and LiDAR heights as GeoTIFF, straight from the Environment Agency, up to 5 km a side; GeoPackage and the LiDAR picture for GIS, a georeferenced image of any LiDAR view, are in development. Every row carries its dataset, publisher and licence, so the terms travel with the data.
• Print a map to scale. From 1:1,250 to 1:25,000, with the National Grid, a scale bar, a north arrow, the sources and the LiDAR method. A sheet for the field, or an appendix that says where it came from.

Teaching and departments

• Classes (in development). A class with a join code, with co-lecturers and markers, where exercises are set, submitted and marked on the map; students work in their own projects and never see each other's work. A practical runs in the browser with nothing to install.
• Practicals (in development). Five ready-made exercises with learning outcomes, law and access, questions, reading and printable worksheets: earthworks on LiDAR, a parish survey at Avebury, map regression at Cranbrook in Devon, a Roman road, a barrow cemetery and a dyke on Cranborne Chase, and a hillfort survey at Maiden Castle. A lecturer starts from a worked exercise rather than a blank page.
• Your institution (in development). A lead adds people at the institution's own email domains, switches access off and on, and sees use by month for twelve months, as CSV. Counting began in October 2026, records one row for each event and never what was looked at, and is not COUNTER-compliant reporting. A department can see whether its access is used.

The evidence programme

Claims about research tools are easy to make and hard to check. Through 2026 and 2027 we are setting out to test ours, in four strands. All four are planned: none has started, no organisation has yet agreed to take part, and there are no results. We will publish the method before any data is collected, and the results when they exist, whatever they show.

• An evaluation with Finds Liaison Officers. Whether a find prepared at source arrives complete enough to record: the officer's minutes for each record, the fields complete on arrival, the precision of the findspot, the photographs that can be used and the records completed without a further visit. Finds Liaison Officers have no duty to review what finders submit, and the evaluation asks nothing of them beyond what they and their employer agree.
• University pilots. One or two departments, each after its own ethics review and with a data agreement. Measured by the usual route and in Field Archaeology: the time to assemble and cite the evidence, the sources consulted, the datasets used, the participant's confidence, whether people carry on, and, once search coverage is in the atlas, whether it changed an interpretation.
• Case Study 001, Boroughbridge. A landscape question in North Yorkshire beside Aldborough, the Roman town of Isurium Brigantum (Roman Inscriptions of Britain, no date), which is a scheduled monument (Historic England 2026) and is not searched. It goes ahead only with written consent from the landowner and every finder, with the search area checked against the scheduled area and left out if any part overlaps, findspots published no finer than the parish, and finds reported to the Finds Liaison Officer. The planned outputs are an OASIS record, a short report and an aggregate data release with a DOI.
• Independent review. Specialists independent of Gitwix Limited are to review the method before it starts and the results before they are published. The reviewers are not yet appointed.

Research programme 2026 to 2027 sets out each strand, what is measured and how to take part.

Questions and answers

Sources

1. Adnams, W. (2023) Devon Tithe Mapping Polygonisation Project [data set]. York: Archaeology Data Service. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5284/1114574 (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
2. Bennett, R., Welham, K., Hill, R.A. and Ford, A. (2012) ‘A comparison of visualization techniques for models created from airborne laser scanned data’, Archaeological Prospection, 19(1), pp. 41 to 48. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/arp.1414.
3. British Geological Survey (no date) BGS Geology 625k. Available at: https://www.bgs.ac.uk/datasets/bgs-geology-625k/ (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
4. British Museum (2026) 2024 was a record-breaking year for archaeological finds and Treasure in Britain [press release]. Available at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/press/press-releases/2024-was-record-breaking-year-archaeological-finds-and-treasure-britain (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
5. Brookes, S. (2020) Domesday Shires and Hundreds of England [data set]. York: Archaeology Data Service. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5284/1058999 (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
6. Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (2020) Standard and guidance for historic environment desk-based assessment. Reading: CIfA. Available at: https://www.archaeologists.net/sites/default/files/2023-11/CIfA-SandG-DBA-2020.pdf (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
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