[OSGeo-Discuss] Tools and approaches for the cartography of archaeological excavation sites

[Mathieu Baudier]

Hello,

I have been asked to analyze how FLOSS software could help to support
an archaeological program that would take place in remote mountainous
corners of Central Asia.

I pretty much see which sensors and software to use for the small
scale part, where standard GPS precision is enough.

But the most important part is a large scale work, where they need a
much higher precision in order to position their findings and draw
very precise maps of the excavation sites.
When they work in Europe they have sensors and are in a context which
give them a precision of the millimeter.
For this project they know that they won't have access to the same
tooling and they could live with a precision of the centimeter.

My questions to the list therefore are:
- is it relevant to use "our" usual FOSS4G software (GRASS, QGIS,
etc.) for such tasks? or do only CAD tools make sense?
- do some of you have experience with sensors/methodologies which
would provide centimeter order precision, be transportable and usable
in remote areas and not too expensive?
- more generally, if somebody has experience with similar
problematics, I'd be very interested in pointers to documentation,
software, sensors...

I hope that I am not (too much) out of topic: I must say that it is
not yet completely clear to me at how large a scale do GIS stop...

Thanks in advance for your comments,

Mathieu