Artifact Labelling:

An artifact is any product of human workmanship. An archaeologist or field excavator looks for signs of intentional modification on each object like grinding, polishing, flaking, or battering. Once the excavator is convinced that the object is an artifact, it requires an accession number. The accession number for an archaeological artifact has two parts: the site name, and a number for the order in which it was found. For example, DcRu4:3338 means that this artifact was found at DcRu4 (Kosapsom) and named as the 3338th artifact.

Glossary terms: Artifact, Archaeologist, Field Excavator, Accession Number.

Borden Numbers:

In Canada, all archaeological sites are coded by what is known as the "Borden System". It assigns each location a sequence of 4 letters [DcRu] and a number [4] relating to a fixed map code.

Borden numbers were invented by Charles E. Borden at the University of British Columbia in 1954. Canada was divided into a grid of main map units of 2° (degrees) latitude (high) by 4° longitude (wide). Latitudinal co-ordinates are assigned capital letters from A through U from north to south and longitude is designated by capital letters A through V from east to west. Each 2° x 4° main unit (192 km x 300 km) is further sub-divided into 10 minute (') sub-units designated by lower case letters from south to north (latitude) and east to west (longitude). For example, in DcRu4, the first two letters indicate the site is in one of the 16km wide grid squares in the latitudinal 'D' square, and the last 2 letters likewise show the grid position on the longitude. The number '4' after the four letters means it was the fourth site found within a 16 km x 16 km unit.

Borden Number Identification:

The D R in DcRu4