Page 235 - Manual for Activities directed at the Underwater Cultural Heritage

 © I. Radic´ Rossi. Fotodocumentation of the Croatian Conservation Institute. Documentation of a late Roman shipwreck at Pakoštane, Croatia. Primary observations are very important. It is good practice in archaeology to keep systematic field-notes in project diaries and documentation forms. Diary entries covering all aspects of the project and external conditions serve both as the basis and as a check for analysis and should be part of the project archive.
especially those that relate to stratigraphy and spatial relationships in deposits that are unravelled in ex- cavation, are of a one-off nature. It is good practice to have another member of the team corroborate those observations, even if that is not always possible. In low visibility and highly dynamic underwater sites, for instance, every single observation may turn out to be important. This is to say, it can be important for the purposes of the project at hand, but it can also prove important at a much later stage.
The documentation by the diving supervisor is aimed at safety and management of potentially dangerous situations and accidents. It should always be kept in real-time and hard copy. Individual dive sheets may also contain information that is important for evaluation of safety issues. Archaeologically, however, it is more important that they serve the same purpose as the hardbound notebook referred to above, commenting primary observations as well as remarks on general well-being and the conditions of the dive. Such sheets should also refer to any other documentation that results from that same individual dive, such as drawings, sketches, photos, video or measuring sheets.
Due to underwater psychology and the workings of the human mind, it is essential that the delay between the dive and the writing of the individual dive report is as short as possible. Sometimes this
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Documentation