Current mobile GIS technology contributes to traditional archaeological survey methods in several ways. First, mobile GIS aids surveyors with navigation because the anticipated survey transects, and some other relevant guidance information, can be clearly indicated in conjunction with the current GPS location. Second, mobile GIS allows researchers to record new vector data along with attribute forms that are more flexible than those provided by GPS or by data dictionary approaches in the past. Finally, mobile GIS allows researchers to transport digital datasets into the field so that they can do error checking immediately, review the work of other research teams, and perform queries on large existing volumes of data in digital form.

When a surveyor encountered an archaeological feature the surveyor would first determine if the feature exceeded the specification for isolates and then, should the feature be a site, the surveyor would call a halt to the survey line. Site boundaries were established for two reasons in the 2003 fieldwork. First, in GIS it is generally required that a geographical feature be delimited and that a database record is created before it can be attributed. Thus, one cannot describe a site that has not yet mapped, unless some kind of more complicated work-around is employed such as the creation of a temporary attribute record. A second beneficial effect of delimiting sites as an initial step, however, is that the team is forced to travel over the site completely and assess the extent and variability before an attempt was made to describe it.