Before starting any fieldwork activity, we thought it was essential to initiate and encourage a discussion within the Albanian archaeological community on excavation procedures and standards of archaeological documentation.

This discussion was hoped to lay the basis of the future work among Albanian archaeologists. For this purpose, in collaboration with the Institute of Archaeology, ICAA organized the theoretical seminar “On the standardization of archaeological excavation and documentation in Albania”.

A long preparation work of Amore and Bejko was materialized in a series of pre-printed recording sheets to be used in the field and in a site manual which explains a whole range of recording and field procedures. This was not only the first attempt of this sort in the country, but also reflected a number of experiences of similar units in the US (Office of Public Archaeology, Boston University), Italy (Soprintendenza Archeologica per il Lazio, University of Siena Archaeology Group), and England (Museum of London Archaeological Service, Norfolk Archeological Unit, York Archaeological Unit, Archaeology Data Service).

The focus of the seminar was the discussion of the main principles of stratigraphical excavation and of single context planning procedures, and the importance of an electronic database where to record and link the archaeological data on national scale.