Anchurus II is a group of IT applications and manual operations that will enable users to record and interpret excavations.
The current release, Anchurus II release 2, has been designed to support the work of those involved in post-excavation. This objective has been chosen because this is the phase of the archaeological workflow where IT support is most likely to improve our working practices.
The audience for this manual
This user manual has been designed and is available as an online resource which supports the work of users performing a number of different roles associated with an archaeological excavation. These roles include:
- Surveyors: who lay out the site grids and are responsible for geo-positioning everything on site
- Geophysics specialists: who carry out geophysics surveys using earth resistance, gradiometer and ground penetrating surveys
- Diggers: who work on site to excavate, recover finds and record contexts. Many diggers are novices learning their way in field archaeology
- Excavation area leaders: who are responsible for ensuring that the archaeological records for their excavation area are as accurate as possible and for the learning environment in which novice diggers learn field archaeology
- Finds specialists: who take responsibility for the finds found on site, register them and include them in a finds’ filing system. They identify the individual finds and then identify the findgroups which represent where, how and when they were produced
- People working in post excavation: who start by reviewing and developing digital records of the context evidence found on site and transform it into the stratigraphic analysis of the site. They then work with the finds specialists to provide a comprehensive understanding of a site , which they can record in site reports aimed at the different audiences who have an interest in the site
- Site leaders: who are responsible for writing Written Schemes of Investigations and overseeing and directing the above
- Information Technology specialists who manage the information systems that support the work of the above
Anchurus II has been developed by a voluntary sector organisation that has groups of members working in all the above roles. For example at an excavation in 2025, the organisation had over 90 people working on site and over 90 people working in post excavation with advice from finds and other specialists.
One implication of this is that Anchurus II supports individuals who:
- Are archaeological novices
- Have median levels of experience
- Have been working on archaeological sites for a few days a year and for many years
- Are register CIfA members
The structure of this manual
This manual consists of a series of web pages which cover the many different tasks that need to be undertaken as the excavation of a site progresses.
The recently published Archaeologists Guide to Good Practice and the many hundreds of books written about how to conduct archaeological fieldwork, show that this is a well worked subject. For this reason, this user manual focusses on How to use Anchurus II to help you in your work.
If, as a result of consulting this manual, you feel there is material that could be improved, please use the Anchurus website contact page to start a dialogue with us.
Andrew Hutt
Version v04
06/05/2026