Single-Context Recording System

The context sheet is the atomic unit of the recording system. Its design varies between organisations, but every well-designed version contains the same core fields. Each field exists to satisfy a specific legal or scientific requirement.

• Context number: the unique identifier that ties every photograph, plan, section drawing, and sample to this specific context. Non-reusable within a site.
• Context type: cut, fill, layer, surface, structure, or skeleton. This determines which additional fields are relevant.
• Physical description: colour (using a standard chart such as Munsell), texture, composition (soil type, stones, organic material), inclusions, compaction, and any distinguishing features such as charcoal lenses or root channels.
• Dimensions: length, width, depth or thickness, and plan shape for features. For grave cuts: the dimensions of the grave shaft. For fills: the depth of each distinct fill layer.
• Stratigraphic relationships: which context numbers this context is above, below, and contemporary with. Completed from direct observation, not inference.
• Finds and samples: cross-references to the finds register (artefact numbers) and sample register (soil, pollen, entomological, or biological samples taken from this context).
• Excavator and date: the identity of the person who observed and recorded the context, and the date. This is critical for chain-of-custody purposes.

Context numbers are issued sequentially from a master register. On a multi-person excavation, numbers are usually pre-allocated in blocks to individual excavators to prevent duplication, or they are issued centrally from a site supervisor. Two contexts that accidentally share the same number create an ambiguity in the record that can be exploited in cross-examination.

The number sequence runs throughout the entire excavation and is never reset. Context 001 might be the topsoil stripped on day one, and context 247 might be the natural deposit reached at the base of the deepest grave on the last day of excavation. The sequence makes it possible to establish in what order contexts were identified, which can itself have evidential value if a question arises about whether something was found before or after a particular event in the excavation.

Where a context is initially assigned a number and then found to be the same deposit as a previously recorded context, the later number is retained with a cross-reference note (equivalent to context 014) rather than being deleted. This preserves the integrity of the sequence even where it records a correction.

The Museum of London Archaeology and Wessex Archaeology are among the organisations whose recording systems have been most widely adapted for forensic use in England and Wales. Both have published their systems and both have been applied in criminal investigations and human-rights recovery operations, giving them a track record in court.

MOLA's system, described in the Archaeological Site Manual published by the Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS, 3rd ed. 1994), developed in a context of dense urban stratigraphy where a single trench might contain hundreds of contexts representing two thousand years of occupation. Its strength is granularity: every interface and every deposit surface is a distinct context, which creates a very detailed record. For forensic work, the challenge is proportionality: a single grave may only have eight to fifteen contexts, and the overhead of MOLA-level detail is manageable.

Wessex Archaeology's approach, applied on large rural and open-country projects, tends to integrate more spatial data through its emphasis on total station survey and GIS recording from early in the project. Their environmental sampling protocols are also well-developed, making their system particularly useful for forensic cases where pollen, soil, and entomological sampling from specific contexts is important.

A skeleton discovered during excavation is assigned a context number exactly like any other context. The skeleton sheet records everything that applies to any fill context, and adds fields specific to human remains. Body position (supine, prone, flexed, extended), orientation (head direction by compass bearing), degree of articulation, and the spatial relationships between skeletal elements are all documented in plan and in photograph before the first element is lifted.

• Element list: each skeletal element present is checked off against a standard element inventory list. Missing elements are noted because their absence may indicate post-mortem disturbance, scavenging, or initial incomplete burial.
• Articulation: the degree to which the skeleton remains in anatomical position. Full articulation indicates primary undisturbed burial. Disarticulation indicates secondary disturbance, body movement, or very advanced decomposition.
• Associations: any materials in direct contact with the remains, clothing, jewellery, ligatures, projectiles, or personal effects, are recorded in situ before removal. These constitute separate finds numbers cross-referenced to the skeleton context.
• Samples from remains: teeth and dense cortical bone for DNA and radiocarbon dating are identified and sampled in consultation with the forensic anthropologist before excavation disrupts the element positions.

In most common-law jurisdictions, contemporaneous records made in the ordinary course of professional practice are admissible as evidence of the facts recorded in them. A context sheet completed on site at the time of excavation qualifies. The conditions that strengthen admissibility are: the record was made by someone with direct observational access, it was completed at or near the time of the event it documents, and the person who completed it is available to give evidence about it.

International tribunals, most notably the ICTY, have accepted site archives from forensic archaeological investigations as documentary exhibits. The key challenge in those proceedings was demonstrating chain of custody for the archive itself: that the sheets had not been altered between excavation and submission, and that the archive was complete. Digital records with cryptographic hash verification are now common in high-stakes cases to meet this requirement.