There is a great value to future generations of scholars, historians, archaeologists, and even the general public in the standardization of mapping and archiving techniques worldwide. Although the concept is appealing, it also seems to be an extremely problematic task. There are many barriers, the first and foremost being obvious cultural differences such as language and scientific approach or lack there of. The other prevalent problems are differences in measurement systems, variations in available budgets, technology available to perform the task, and willingness by governments or individuals to take on such a project.

From about 1980 until 1989 our corporation was involved in salvage, conservation, and curation of artifacts salvaged from the shipwrecks of the 1715 fleet and the 1622 Fleet as well as three 1800 period wrecks. The task was to catalogue all artifacts recovered, delegate the conservation of such objects, evaluate them with the help of a committee, document them and eventually distribute them. Initially, our record keeping methodology involved mainly hand written field log sheets, log books, 5X7 index cards, typewritten lists, a 35 mm camera and binders. We had a curation/ conservation staff of three. Our office had one computer, used mainly by the executive assistant who maintained contracts and correspondence. This computer had an eight-inch floppy disk which was at that time state of the art. At the time, we didn’t realize the vast importance or the potential of computers in our work.

In 1985, our company found the primary cultural deposit or "mother lode" of the Atocha and recovered over 120,000 objects from that one ship alone. It became immediately necessary to hire more conservation/curation staff and a computer expert to help catalogue and document all of the items. Our crew increased to nearly 20 people overnight, and we were still understaffed. All of the artifacts and their descriptions were entered into a database. The 5X7 index cards were still made for significant artifacts with

the exception of the silver coins which were photographed (front and back) on videotapes. In 1986, another 18,000 plus artifacts were catalogued using this method. Meanwhile, artifacts were also coming in from the Margarita and the 1715 Fleet wrecks as well. We had a few computers in the office now, for secretarial as well as bookkeeping and our computer expert had 4 computers solely for data entry of finds and photo recording.

Late in 1989, our company decided to open a conservation lab and museum in the Fort Pierce area near the 1715 Fleet sites. We had an area director of operations, a conservation staff of one, three museum employees and two salvage boats with four men crews. There were about 50 subcontractors working the 1715 fleet sites with us. We had one computer with a 5 1/4inch floppy drive and a little memory. We had learned basic use of Dbase (a database program) and Word (a letter writing program) and Basic (programming language). Until this time, for the curatorial team, the eleven ships of the 1715 fleet were just site names associated with artifacts. We began to learn about the sites and discuss theories of their sinking with the subcontractors. All recoveries made that year went into the database. The amount of memory in our computer limited the fields for data entry and only allowed space for identification number, description, site, salvors name, and value.

Over the next two years, we moved our location 30 miles north to Sebastian Florida and renovated an old fire station into a museum/conservation lab and offices for our operation. Our computer was upgraded to one with a 3 ½ inch floppy disk with a little more memory. We studied the research of Gene Lyons, Jack Haskins, and Mel Fisher. We became more involved with and began to streamline and document the operational procedures which included collecting archeological information, conservation techniques, mapping techniques, and salvage techniques. We were working under a settlement agreement with the State of Florida that required certain archaeological guidelines (prepared by a committee including state officials and commercial salvors jointly) be followed. Although we kept a master map of all of the finds by site to help us in future decisions about where to look next, we were required to turn in base maps to the state of Florida on an annual basis and each subcontractor had to turn in one map for each of the sites he worked. Some years, as many as 50 subcontractors worked 2 to 3 sites each. This meant we turned in over one hundred maps. Ten of those maps may have been the same site although were worked by different salvors. All of these maps were hand plotted using

a three-armed protractor and a base map in the UTM coordinate system which the State employed. This meant very little to an outsider. This method also allowed many opportunities for human error such as poor eyesight taking the original reading, naming the wrong markers, dyslexic recording of numbers on field notes, and inaccurate plotting. This was cumbersome to say the least, and we were starting to realize that a better way must be found.

In 1992, an archaeologist new to the project was brought on board to do a report encompassing the previous two years of work. She was newly graduated from college and familiar with computers. We bought a second computer with enhanced memory (a 286mb) for the lab and enlisted some volunteers from the community to do data entry. We added a few more fields to the database such as artifact composition, quantity, and category. Each consecutive year our knowledge of computers and field operations improved. We upgraded our computers as we could.

In 1993 the question was asked by one of our subcontractors "How much treasure is left to be found on this fleet"? That is when we decided to begin the computerized archiving of all finds. This way we could estimate how much treasure from these ships remained to be found by subtracting the total known recoveries from the manifested cargo and estimated contraband. This was not a small undertaking. To begin the project we needed copies of all field notes from all vessels that ever worked this fleet. This project originally started in the early 1960’s. Since we already had copies of the field notes starting from 1989 for our own vessels, we contacted the State of Florida and requested copies of all field notes from all vessels that worked these sites from the time they began keeping records of work preformed on these sites through 1989. We also requested copies of field notes of vessels that worked these sites after 1989 were under an agreement with the state not covered under our own agreement. The tedious job of data entry then began. By this time our operation was using three computers and had upgraded to Dbase IV (database program) and Word 3.0 (word processing program). We had a total of 10 employees and volunteers total to run the museum, office and lab.

In 1994 we hired a new conservator, Bill Moore, who was very knowledgeable about computers. Bill had also worked with us on the Atocha in 1985 and was familiar with salvage operations. It was Bill’s suggestion that we change from Dbase IV to the new Microsoft office