Small observation: I worked on a dinosaur dig in Montana for 2 summers as a teen. a major problem was not identification of the bones in our case, but the fragility of the bones we were digging. Maybe 50% of our time was flaking rock away slowly with a an icepick, sweeping up the crushed rock, putting it in a bucket, and moving the crushed rock to a tailings pile. Each dedicated quadrant of the dig had its own tailings pile (1x1x1M of rock had its own pile) in case a pice of fragment was lost.
I know that low cost survey Lidar will really help, and that RTK GPS is also improving things. On larger digs, documentation with drones is also likely to produce better incremental tracking of progress. But, for this to be better, improving the actual digging is still a big unsolved problem.
EDIT: the other 50% of our time was:
40% reassembling bones with superglue in an air conditioned room. (pleasant for the temperature, but maddeningly frustrating work)
10% dig notation, journaling, discussion, planning, survey, etc.
I know that low cost survey Lidar will really help, and that RTK GPS is also improving things. On larger digs, documentation with drones is also likely to produce better incremental tracking of progress. But, for this to be better, improving the actual digging is still a big unsolved problem.
EDIT: the other 50% of our time was: 40% reassembling bones with superglue in an air conditioned room. (pleasant for the temperature, but maddeningly frustrating work)
10% dig notation, journaling, discussion, planning, survey, etc.