Archaeological Field Survey

Course Description

Archaeological Field Survey provides instruction in archaeological field survey techniques for the identification, location, and documentation of both terrestrial and submerged cultural resources. Subjects include research methodologies, cultural resource management process and regulations, ethical concerns relating to archaeological sites, remote sensing methodologies, magnetometer and sonar applications in maritime archaeology, collection of archaeological and environmental data, use of mapping and surveying equipment, field survey strategies and research design, fundamentals of data collection and recording, FMSF survey forms, report writing and production. It is offered concurrently with ANG5080, and permission is required.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, ANT is the Anthropology prefix. UWF publishes this at 3 semester hours, with ANT2000 as prerequisite.

Survey, not excavation, is what most professional archaeologists actually do. The compliance process begins by asking whether anything is there, and the answer comes from survey — which is why this course's syllabus reads like a job description: research design, regulations, remote sensing, mapping equipment, Florida Master Site File forms, and report production. The inclusion of magnetometer and sonar alongside terrestrial methods is distinctively UWF, and it reflects a programme that works on submerged sites as routinely as on land.

⚠ The contact-hour figure is derived — the University of West Florida publishes none

UWF's catalog publishes a credit value in semester hours, the college and department, prerequisites where they exist, and a description. It does not publish contact hours, a lecture and laboratory split, or terms of offering for any course. It does publish a material and supply fee notice on the minority of courses that carry one — and maintains a separate Material & Supply and Equipment Fees section of the catalog — so the absence of a fee notice on this entry is meaningful, while the fee amount is not published here. Every contact-hour value in a UWF guide in this repository is therefore derived. The figure here applies the standard lecture convention of 15 contact hours per credit, corroborated inside this prefix by the live ANT2000 at 3 credits and 45 hours. Confirm the meeting schedule with the department.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the purposes of archaeological survey and its place in the process.
• Develop a research design appropriate to a survey problem.
• Describe the cultural resource management process and the regulations driving it.
• Describe Section 106 and the survey obligations it creates.
• Describe survey strategies and select one appropriate to conditions.
• Describe probabilistic and judgemental sampling in survey.
• Describe coverage, interval, and their effect on detection probability.
• Conduct pedestrian survey and shovel testing.
• Describe subsurface testing strategies and their limits.
• Use mapping and surveying equipment competently.
• Establish and record datum and control points.
• Use satellite positioning appropriately and describe its accuracy limits.
• Describe terrestrial remote sensing methods and what each detects.
• Describe ground-penetrating radar and its interpretation.
• Describe magnetometry and its application to maritime survey.
• Describe side-scan and sub-bottom sonar and their outputs.
• Interpret remote sensing data and identify targets for verification.
• Describe submerged cultural resource survey and its constraints.
• Collect archaeological and environmental data systematically.
• Record a site to Florida Master Site File standards.
• Complete FMSF survey forms accurately.
• Describe ethical concerns relating to site locations and their confidentiality.
• Write a survey report meeting professional and regulatory standards.
• Produce maps and figures suitable for a report.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe geophysical survey in greater depth.
• Describe predictive modelling for site location.
• Describe LiDAR and aerial imagery in survey.
• Describe underwater positioning systems.
• Describe survey in the marine permitting context.
• Describe quality control and peer review of survey reports.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Purposes of survey
• Research design
• The CRM process and regulations
• Section 106 obligations
• Survey strategies
• Sampling in survey
• Coverage, interval, and detection
• Pedestrian survey and shovel testing
• Subsurface testing and its limits
• Mapping and surveying equipment
• Datum and control points
• Satellite positioning and accuracy
• Terrestrial remote sensing
• Ground-penetrating radar
• Magnetometry
• Side-scan and sub-bottom sonar
• Interpreting remote sensing data
• Submerged resource survey
• Systematic data collection
• Recording to FMSF standards
• FMSF survey forms
• Site location confidentiality
• Survey report writing
• Maps and figures

Optional Topics

• Geophysical survey in depth
• Predictive modelling
• LiDAR and aerial imagery
• Underwater positioning
• Marine permitting context
• Quality control and peer review

Resources & Tools

• Society for American Archaeology (saa.org) — free Principles of Archaeological Ethics, and inexpensive student membership.
• Register of Professional Archaeologists (rpanet.org) — free; its eligibility criteria state exactly what a professional archaeologist is expected to have done, and a field school is on the list.
• Florida Division of Historical Resources and the Florida Master Site File (dos.fl.gov/historical) — free; Chapter 267, permitting, and the survey forms this work produces.
• Florida Public Archaeology Network (fpan.us) — free programmes and volunteer fieldwork across the state.
• Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (achp.gov) — free; the Section 106 regulations that generate most survey work.
• Florida Master Site File forms and manual — free; learn to complete them properly now, because you will complete them for a living.
• National Register Bulletin 36 (nps.gov) — free; evaluating archaeological properties, which is what a survey report has to support.

Career Pathways

• Anthropologists and archaeologists — SOC 19-3091.
• ⚠ Cultural resource management is where the jobs are — the great majority of professional archaeologists work in compliance, driven by Section 106 and its state equivalents rather than by research funding.
• Field technician — the entry-level role, and a field school is the standard prerequisite for it.
• Crew chief, project archaeologist, principal investigator — the CRM progression; a graduate degree is generally needed above technician.
• State and federal agencies — SHPOs, the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Army Corps of Engineers.
• Tribal historic preservation offices — a growing and important sector.
• Museums, collections management, and curation — SOC 25-4012 and 25-4013.
• ⚠ Be realistic about entry conditions. Field technician work is seasonal, project-based, frequently far from home, and modestly paid. Many do it for a few years and then move up, move into agency or museum work, or leave.
• Survey technician and crew member — the most common entry-level CRM work, and this course is direct preparation.
• Geophysical survey specialist — remote sensing skills are scarce and marketable, on land and in the marine sector.
• Marine survey support in offshore and coastal engineering, where archaeological clearance is a permitting requirement.

Special Information

⚠⚠ Survey finds what its method was capable of finding — and the report must say so

• A survey's negative result is a statement about the method, not about the ground. Interval, coverage, visibility, and testing depth all determine what could have been detected — and a site smaller than the survey interval can sit entirely between the tests.
• ⚠ Report the method precisely: transect spacing, shovel test interval and depth, screen size, and surface visibility conditions. Without those, a later reader cannot distinguish absence of evidence from evidence of absence, and the report becomes unusable.
• Match the strategy to the expected target. A survey designed for large habitation sites will systematically miss small lithic scatters, and that is a design decision rather than an accident.
• ⚠⚠ Ground visibility drives surface survey results entirely. A ploughed field and a dense palmetto understorey are not comparable, and Florida vegetation makes surface survey unproductive across much of the state — which is why shovel testing dominates here.
• Verify remote sensing targets on the ground or in the water. A magnetic or sonar anomaly is a target, not a site, and a great deal of survey time goes into checking anomalies that turn out to be modern debris.
• Understand what each geophysical method detects. Magnetometry finds ferrous material and burning; ground-penetrating radar finds contrasts in subsurface properties — and a method that cannot detect your target will produce a clean negative that means nothing.
• Record positional accuracy honestly. Consumer satellite positioning is not survey grade, and stating a location to more precision than the instrument supports is a misrepresentation.
• ⚠⚠ Site locations are confidential. Precise coordinates are withheld from public documents because publishing them invites looting — this is a legal and professional norm, not excessive caution.

⚠⚠ Florida field conditions are a genuine hazard — prepare deliberately

• ⚠⚠ Heat is what actually hurts people. Florida field seasons produce real heat exhaustion and heat stroke, and heat stroke is a medical emergency that kills. Drink before you are thirsty, take shade breaks, and know that the highest-risk person is the one who is unacclimatised — which on day one of a field school is everybody.
• Confusion, irrational behaviour, or staggering in a hot-weather worker is heat stroke until proven otherwise, and the person may still be sweating. Cool first, transport second.
• ⚠ Lightning ends fieldwork immediately. Florida has the highest lightning density in the United States. If you can hear thunder you are within range — get to a hard-topped vehicle or a substantial building and wait it out.
• Sun protection is not cosmetic. A career of field seasons is a real cancer risk; long sleeves, a hat, and sunscreen.
• Assume every body of water holds an alligator, and keep well back from banks and edges.
• ⚠ Venomous snakes are present statewide. Watch where you put hands and feet, never reach into what you cannot see, and leave any snake alone — most bites happen to people who tried to handle or kill one.
• Ticks, mosquitoes, chiggers, and fire ants are constant. Use repellent, check for ticks daily, and treat mosquito-borne illness as a genuine Florida concern.
• Learn poison ivy, which grows abundantly here and climbs as a vine.
• ⚠⚠ Excavation units are trenches. Deep units can collapse, and trench collapse kills quickly and buries people who thought a shallow unit was safe — know your project's depth limits and shoring requirements.
• Lift properly and rotate tasks. Screening and mattock work injure backs and shoulders over a season.
• Tell someone where you are, carry water and a charged phone, and never work alone in a remote area.

⚠⚠ Excavation is destruction, and the record is what survives

• A site can be excavated once. Removing material destroys its context permanently, and context is where nearly all the information is.
• ⚠ Which is why recording is the actual work. The site is gone; the notes, drawings, photographs and samples are what remains of it. A dig with poor records has destroyed a site and produced nothing.
• ⚠⚠ Do not collect. Surface collecting, souvenir-taking, and metal detecting on a project or a public site are unprofessional and frequently unlawful — and a single artefact pocketed by a student is context destroyed and a career jeopardised.
• Do not buy, sell, or appraise antiquities. The professional societies treat commercialisation of the archaeological record as incompatible with the discipline, because market demand is what funds looting.
• Curation must be planned and funded before excavation, not after. Repositories are full, and excavation without a curation plan is destruction with extra steps.
• ⚠ Human remains require consultation, not just permits, and descendant communities have legitimate authority over the treatment of their ancestors.
• Publish, or the destruction was for nothing. Unreported fieldwork is a recognised failure in this discipline.
• ⚠ Report finds rather than recovering them when you are not on an authorised project. A recorded position is valuable; a surfaced object is context destroyed.

⚠⚠ The legal framework, and why survey work sits inside it

• Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act requires federal agencies to consider effects on historic properties, and it is the single largest driver of archaeological employment in the United States — most professional survey work exists because of it.
• The Archaeological Resources Protection Act governs archaeological resources on federal and tribal land and makes unauthorised excavation, removal, and trafficking a federal offence.
• ⚠⚠ NAGPRA governs human remains, funerary and sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony, creating consultation and repatriation obligations.
• ⚠ Florida Chapter 267 vests archaeological resources on state-owned land and state-owned submerged land in the state. Collecting from them without a permit is unlawful — which matters directly to anyone diving on a Florida wreck.
• ⚠⚠ Florida section 872.05 makes it a felony to knowingly disturb an unmarked human burial. If human remains are encountered, work stops and the statutory process is followed.
• The Florida Master Site File is the state inventory; recording sites into it is a professional obligation, and its forms are a standard survey deliverable.
• Sunken military craft remain flag-state property regardless of age or location — a Spanish colonial warship or a United States naval vessel is not abandoned property.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies. Preservation law and consultation requirements change; verify with the State Historic Preservation Office and the relevant agency.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

ANT4820 is 3 semester hours at the University of West Florida, with ANT2000 as prerequisite, permission required, and offered concurrently with the graduate ANG5080.

This is the most directly job-shaped course in the prefix — survey is what most professional archaeologists do.