Borden System

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The Borden System is an archaeological numbering system used throughout Canada and by the Canadian Museum System to track archaeological sites and the artefacts that come from them.

It was created by Charles E. Borden with the help of Wilson Duff in 1952 at the University of British Columbia. ^[1]

[edit] How it Works

AaBb-11:1234

A is the Major South-North Locator Each block represents 2 degrees of Latitude from south to north (A - U)

a is the Minor South-North Locator Each block represents 10 minutes of Latitude from south to north (a-l)

B is the Major East-West Locator Each block represents 4 degrees of Longitude from east to west (A - V)

b is the Minor East-West Locator Each block represents 10 minutes of Longitude from east to west (a - v)

Therefore, a full designation: AaBb-16 represents a 16km x 16km area and the 16th site found within that area.

Since the number that follows is the number of the site within an area, assigned when the site is discovered, the whole number really only narrows the area to a 16km square. But it allows archaeologists to designate a site and to label every artefact from the site.

The number after the colon is the artefact number.