[Qgis-user] Question: Using QGIS for archaeological documentation workflows

Thu Jan 8 03:28:46 PST 2026

Hi Frank,

Apologies for the late reply, only just catching up on some mailing lists.

QGIS is used extensively in UK commercial archaeology, thanks to ESRIs high prices and our low profits. Unfortunately most commercial units are quite secretive about their use and there's not a lot of collaboration or knowledge sharing going on.

At my previous employer, L-P Archaeology, we used QGIS extensively within the full recording process. I built a set of open source plugins that integrated into our field recording and post-ex analysis processes, linking out to our ARK recording database. We used it on some very large projects including a section of HS2. We were planning to migrate it to using GeoPackages and Mergin with sync to Postgres, but sadly we were taken over by another company who run ESRI so it was shut down. I suspect if we had continued, we might have switched to use QField due to their addition of plugin support which would have allowed us to write a fully custom frontend as well.

Currently I know of at least 2 other companies who use it for at least part of their daily field recording process using Mergin. One I believe has a full trench recording process for field staff that then syncs back to their central database, and the other seems to be using it for things like context sheets etc.

Sorry I can't give too much more details, but hopefully it shows that QGIS is up to the task.

John.

John Layt (He/Him) | Head of Digital Innovation | 07355 093513 | jlayt at mola.org.uk
 MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) | 46 Eagle Wharf Road | London | N1 7ED  | www.mola.org.uk

MOLA is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales, company registration number 07751831, charity registration number 1143574. Registered office: Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED. MOLA is registered as an organisation with the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.

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From: QGIS-User <qgis-user-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of Herrmann, Frank via QGIS-User <qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org>
Sent: 28 November 2025 13:37
To: 'qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org' <qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [Qgis-user] Question: Using QGIS for archaeological documentation workflows

This Message originated outside your organisation.

Dear all,

I hope you are doing well.

My name is Frank Herrmann and I work in the archaeological documentation unit of a German heritage institution (LWL-Archäologie für Westfalen).
We are currently evaluating to what extent QGIS can be used not only for GIS mapping, but also in workflows that involve structured excavation and find data.

Before making internal decisions, we would like to learn from the experience of the QGIS community, especially from people who have used QGIS in archaeological or heritage-related projects.

I would be very grateful for any insights on the following questions:

Do you use QGIS only as a GIS client, or have you also used it for documentation/database-like workflows in archaeology or cultural heritage?

Are there known limitations when using QGIS for long-term excavation documentation, metadata management or multi-user environments?

Do you have recommendations for combining QGIS with external databases (e.g., PostgreSQL/PostGIS, SQLite/Geopackage)?

Are there examples of archaeological projects where QGIS has been used successfully for both spatial and non-spatial documentation?

Any short response, experience, or recommendation would be extremely helpful for us.

Thank you very much in advance for your time - I truly appreciate your support.

Best regards,
Frank Herrmann
LWL-Archäologie für Westfalen
Germany

LWL-Archäologie für Westfalen
Referat Mittelalter
An den Speichern 7
48157 Münster
Telefon: 0251 591-8950
eMail: Frank.Herrmann at lwl.org

Besuchen Sie uns im Internet:
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