Evidence

Research programme 2026 to 2027

Field Archaeology is starting a programme to test what it changes for research in England: how long it takes to assemble and cite the evidence for a landscape question, how much of that evidence is used, and how far the conclusion can be trusted. The programme starts now, in October 2026. Nothing in it has been measured yet, and this page will say so until it has.

Last updated 25 October 2026

What the programme asks

The evidence for a landscape in England is held in many places, each with its own website, format and licence. The atlas's own Sources and licences page lists 32 datasets, each with its publisher and licence: 17 under the Open Government Licence and most of the rest under nine other sets of terms. Most of England's Historic Environment Records are not published openly at all. Data and licences sets them out. Field Archaeology puts that evidence on one map, where it can be read together around a research question, and keeps each record's source and reference with it.

Whether that makes landscape research faster, or more rigorous, is a claim to test rather than assume. We have no figure for how long the usual route takes, so we quote none. Measuring it is the first aim of the programme, and the questions it asks are these:

Speed. Does assembling the evidence for a landscape question, and citing it, take less time in Field Archaeology than by the usual route?
Breadth. Are more of the relevant sources consulted, and more datasets used together?
Rigour. Is every source cited in full, are fewer relevant sources missed, and is the confidence placed in the conclusion better grounded? For a desk-based assessment, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists asks for a list of every source consulted, productive or not, and of every relevant source not consulted, and for a confidence rating in the conclusion (sections 3.3.6 and 3.5.3 of its standard; Desk-based assessment sets them out).
From the field. Do finds recorded at source, with their findspots and the ground that was searched, reach Finds Liaison Officers and researchers in a form they can use?

The programme has four strands. None has started, and no one has yet agreed to take part: we are inviting Finds Liaison Officers, university departments and independent reviewers now. We will publish the method before any data is collected, and the results when they exist, whatever they show.

The four strands

The research programme, 2026 to 2027.
Strand	Who takes part	What it tests	Status
Evaluation with Finds Liaison Officers	Finds Liaison Officers, with the agreement of the museum or body that employs them	Whether a find prepared at source reaches the Finds Liaison Officer complete, and what it costs them in time	Planned
University pilots	A research group, a module or a whole department	The speed, breadth and rigour of landscape research, and whether people carry on using the atlas	Planned
Case Study 001, Boroughbridge	A landowner, the finders of one group dig and the Finds Liaison Officer for the area	What one recorded group dig adds to the record of a Roman town's landscape, shared at parish level or coarser	Planned
Independent expert review	Specialists independent of Gitwix Limited	The method before it starts, and the results before they are published	Reviewers not yet appointed

University pilots

We plan to start with one or two departments rather than many, because each pilot needs its own ethics review and data agreement. A pilot can take one of three forms.

A research group. The group brings a landscape question of its own and works on it in Field Archaeology, with the tools in the atlas today and the research tools in development: research projects with a stated research question, Ask about an area, Compare views and Map regression, and a gazetteer or GeoPackage at the end. We measure the time, the sources, the datasets and the confidence, as set out below.
A module. A lecturer runs one practical in Field Archaeology with a class, such as map regression or reading earthworks on LiDAR. Classes, with a join code, and five ready-made practicals with handouts and worksheets are in development. The pilot asks whether a practical can run with nothing installed, how long students take to assemble and cite the evidence for the set question, and how complete their references are.
A department. Colleagues and students use the atlas over a term or more for their own work. A lead at the institution who adds and manages their own people, and sees monthly counts of use, is in development. The pilot asks who uses it, for what kinds of task, and whether they carry on.

Prior experience of GIS is recorded for everyone taking part, so that the results can be read separately for people with GIS training and people without it. Part of the case for one map is that many students and researchers who need this evidence have not been trained to assemble it in a GIS.

What is measured before and after

For a research group or a module, the outline method is a comparison within each person. Each participant answers two landscape questions of the same size and kind: one in the way they work now, with the separate services and their own GIS, and one in Field Archaeology. Half take the usual route first and half start in Field Archaeology, so that practice favours neither. The full method will be published, and reviewed, before any data is collected, and may change with that review.

What the university pilots measure, by the usual route and in Field Archaeology.
Measure	How it is taken	Why it matters
Time to assemble the evidence	Minutes from the question to a complete set of evidence, logged by the participant	Gathering evidence from separate services is the slow part of the work, and we have no measure of it yet
Time to cite	Minutes to give a full reference for every source used	Each publisher asks for its own credit and licence, and citing them properly by hand is slow
Sources consulted	Every source looked at, productive or not, listed by the participant	The CIfA standard asks for this list
Relevant sources missed	Checked against a list of the open sources relevant to each question, drawn up in advance by an independent reviewer	The standard also asks for the relevant sources not consulted
Datasets used	The datasets that appear in the answer	Whether the evidence is read together or one source at a time
References complete	The share of sources given with their publisher, record number, licence and the date used	A reference that cannot be followed back is not evidence
Confidence	The participant's own rating of their conclusion, on a stated scale, with their reasons	The standard asks for a confidence rating in the conclusion
Carrying on	A short follow-up at the end of the term, and the atlas's counts of use	A tool people stop using after a trial has not changed their work
Search coverage	Once recorded search coverage is in the atlas: whether it changed the participant's reading of a distribution of finds	It is a new kind of evidence, with limits set out below

The counts of use, in development, record one row for each sign-in, report, export or print, with the member, their institution and the time, and never what was looked at. They are not COUNTER-compliant reporting.

Evaluation with Finds Liaison Officers

Of the finds the Portable Antiquities Scheme recorded in 2024, 94 per cent were found by metal detectorists (British Museum 2026; Stephens 2026). Finds Liaison Officers record them for the Scheme. Since its new database opened in 2026, the Scheme has also let a registered finder make a finder submission: one form for each object, with its type, how certain that is, its broad period, the date of discovery, photographs and a findspot of at least an eight-figure grid reference. A finder submission is not a full record and is kept in a separate data set. Finds Liaison Officers may review submissions at their own discretion, with no commitment to monitor them. The Scheme's Finder submissions guide and its FAQs about the new database set this out.

From the field to the record, in development, includes Ready for PAS: it prepares a find recorded at source for the Scheme's own submission form, and the finder submits it from their own account. The recording app never submits anything itself. Potential Treasure never goes by finder submission: the Scheme's guide says the finder must contact their Finds Liaison Officer straight away, so the app gives the legal guidance and points to the Finds Liaison Officer.

The evaluation asks whether a prepared find saves a Finds Liaison Officer time and arrives complete. Against matched finds that reach them in the usual way, it measures:

the officer's minutes for each record;
the fields complete on arrival;
how precise the findspot is, and how many reach a ten-figure grid reference or an eight-figure one;
how many photographs can be used without being taken again;
how many records are completed without a further visit;
for any potential Treasure, the days from the find to the report;
whether the landowner's and the occupier's details were complete;
the officer's own rating of how useful the prepared find was.

Finds Liaison Officers have no duty to review finder submissions, and the evaluation asks nothing of them beyond what they and their employer agree. We promise neither faster recording nor more finds recorded: finding out is the point of the evaluation.

Case Study 001: Boroughbridge

The first case study is planned at Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire, beside Aldborough Roman town, Isurium Brigantum (Roman Inscriptions of Britain, no date). The town is a scheduled monument, list entry 1003133 on the National Heritage List for England (Historic England 2026), and is not searched. The case study asks three questions:

How long does it take to assemble and cite the evidence for the landscape around the town, by the usual route and in Field Archaeology: the LiDAR in its several views, the Ordnance Survey maps from 1885 to 1961, the Roman roads and the national records for the area?
What does one group dig nearby, recorded at source, add beside that evidence: its finds by period, and the ground that was searched where nothing was found? Does it add to the published record, test it, or neither?
Can a search like this be recorded, reported to the Scheme and published without putting any findspot at risk?

It goes ahead only if every one of these holds:

the search area is first checked against the scheduled area, and if any part of it overlaps, the dig is not used. Using a metal detector on a scheduled monument without written consent is an offence (Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, section 42);
the landowner and every finder agree in writing to take part, and to what is published;
finds are reported to the Finds Liaison Officer for the area, and any potential Treasure through them as the law requires;
everything published is at parish level or coarser, with no precise findspot and no landowner's or finder's name.

The planned outputs are a record in OASIS, the index of archaeological investigations in England, which is open to anyone undertaking fieldwork, community groups and academics among them (OASIS, no date); a short report; and a dataset of counts at parish level or coarser, deposited with a DOI.

Recording where people searched

A find on a map says where something was found. It does not say where people looked and found nothing, or how hard they looked, so an empty area can mean nothing is there or that no one searched. Historic England's guidance on surface-collected finds makes the point for battlefield detecting surveys:

It is not enough to GPS record each find location as part of a ‘random wander’. There needs to be a well-documented consistent survey coverage, because the variation in numbers of finds and even complete gaps in the record must reflect the total numbers of finds in the ground, not how much time was spent in any area.

Foard, G., in Historic England (2018) Our Portable Past, Appendix 3

The same guidance asks projects that collect finds from the surface to record the proportion of the area sampled. A detectorist's recorded walk is not a systematic survey: it is opportunistic search with its effort measured. The programme labels it that way, records the conditions, and never presents a blank as proof that nothing is there. We found no published study of hobby detectorists' search records at scale, so whether they help researchers is a question the programme tests, not a claim it makes.

Independent expert review

Specialists independent of Gitwix Limited, in landscape archaeology and LiDAR, geospatial methods, finds recording, and research ethics and data protection, will be asked to:

review the method before any data is collected;
draw up, for each pilot question, the list of relevant open sources against which missed sources are counted;
review the results and the report before they are published.

Their comments will be published with the results, under their names or without them, as each reviewer chooses. No reviewer has been appointed yet, and none is named here.

Ethics, consent and data agreements

Ethics review first. Each university pilot starts only after the university's own research ethics review. The Economic and Social Research Council (2026), for example, expects review before the research begins, with a decision within 60 days at most save in circumstances beyond the research organisation's control, and says that research with human participants and personal data may need full review rather than light-touch.
A written data agreement. Before a pilot starts, the institution and Gitwix Limited agree in writing what is collected, who holds it, where it is stored, how long it is kept, and how it is returned or deleted at the end. Field Archaeology's database and sign-in are hosted in Frankfurt, and some of the services it uses run in the United States; the agreement sets this out. A privacy notice and pilot terms for Field Archaeology will be in place before the first pilot starts.
Consent to be measured. Taking part in the measurement is a separate choice from using the atlas. Participants can withdraw, each person's results are reported without their name, and a person or body is named or quoted only with their written consent. For students it is voluntary and kept apart from assessment.
Finds Liaison Officers take part with the agreement of the museum or body that employs them.
Findspots. The Scheme never shows the public a precise findspot, only the parish or community, as its guide How to get and record findspots explains, and its terms for higher-level access let those who see precise findspots publish them no more precisely than a four-figure grid reference, a 1 km square. The case study publishes at parish level or coarser.

What we will publish

The method, before any data is collected, and any change to it, with the reason.
The consent model for finds and search records, before any are used.
The results of each strand, including results that show no difference or a worse one.
Numbers only once they have been measured: until then this page gives none.

This page is updated as each strand begins.

What taking part gives you

Access to Field Archaeology, free while the pilot runs, for you and, in a department pilot, your colleagues and students, added by their email addresses.
The results of your strand before they are published, and the published report.
Credit in the report, by name or not, as you choose.
A say in what is built next: feedback from inside the atlas goes straight to the team building it.

A department that wants to carry on after its pilot can take a licence, priced on request. Licences explains how a pilot becomes one.

How to take part

Ask through Request access on the atlas's sign-in page. Choose the uses that fit, such as research, teaching, a student project or dissertation, or finds recording, and in the project description say that you would like to take part in the research programme, and in which strand.
We read every request ourselves and reply by email to agree the next steps.
A pilot starts once its ethics review and data agreement are in place.

Finds Liaison Officers, landowners and reviewers can also write to admin@fieldfinders.co.uk. For universities says what the atlas does today.

Field Archaeology is independent. Naming the Portable Antiquities Scheme, Historic England, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists or the Economic and Social Research Council on this page does not mean that any of them takes part in the programme or endorses it.

Questions and answers

Has the programme started?

It starts now, in October 2026. No strand has begun collecting data and there are no results. This page is updated as each strand begins, and results are added only once they have been measured and reviewed.

Is the programme run with the Portable Antiquities Scheme or a university?

No. No public body, museum or university has agreed to take part yet, and none runs or endorses the programme. Field Archaeology is independent. We are inviting Finds Liaison Officers, departments and reviewers now, and a participant is named here only once they have agreed, in writing, to be named.

Does taking part cost anything?

No. Field Archaeology is free while the pilot runs, for everyone taking part in the programme as for everyone else in the pilot.

Will any findspot be published?

No. Case Study 001 publishes at parish level or coarser and never gives a precise findspot, the landowner's name or a finder's name. The Portable Antiquities Scheme itself shows the public only the parish or community where a find was made.

Can students take part?

Yes, through a module or a dissertation, once their university's ethics review has approved the pilot. Taking part in the measurement is voluntary and kept apart from assessment: a student who says no loses nothing in the module.

Sources

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).
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).
Economic and Social Research Council (2026) Our expectations of ethics review. Swindon: UK Research and Innovation. Available at: https://www.ukri.org/councils/esrc/guidance-for-applicants/research-ethics-guidance/ethics-reviews/our-expectations-of-ethics-review/ (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
Historic England (2018) Our Portable Past. Swindon: Historic England. Available at: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/ourportablepast/heag177-our-portable-past/ (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
Historic England (2026) National Heritage List for England, list entry 1003133: Aldborough Roman town. Available at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1003133 (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, section 42. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1979/46/section/42 (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
OASIS (no date) OASIS: England information. Available at: https://oasis.ac.uk/country/england/index.xhtml (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
Portable Antiquities Scheme (2026) Finder submissions guide. Available at: https://finds.org.uk/guides/detecting-guidance/finder-submissions-guide (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
Portable Antiquities Scheme (2026) FAQs about the new database. Available at: https://finds.org.uk/faqs-about-the-new-database (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
Portable Antiquities Scheme (2026) How to get and record findspots. Available at: https://finds.org.uk/guides/detecting-guidance/how-to-get-and-record-findspots (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
Portable Antiquities Scheme (2026) Terms of service for higher-level access accounts. Available at: https://finds.org.uk/terms-of-service-for-higher-level-access-accounts (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
Roman Inscriptions of Britain (no date) Aldborough. Available at: https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/sites/aldborough (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
Stephens, S. (2026) ‘PAS report highlights public engagement in museums’, Museums Journal, 21 January. Available at: https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2026/01/pas-report-highlights-public-engagement-in-museums/ (Accessed: 25 October 2026).