Dear James,
 
A typical mainstream relational database system should deal with virtually all
your requirements. Paradox for Windows 5.0 is excellent and can offer a fair
number of charting options as well, and if that is not sufficient you shoudl be
able to export your coordiantes to a spreadsheet (e.g. Quattro) or graphing
programme (e.g. Grapher or Surfer from Golden Software, Golden, CO).
 
If your finds are from surveys over a wide area the locational coordinates you
use to plot depend on whatever grid system your topographical maps use. In the
UK the Ordnance Survey National Grid Reference, through a combination of two
letters and eight digits allows you to specify a location to the nearest 10
metres. It is possible to add within site coordinates to this grid, plus
eleveation. TheNGR can also be simply converted to XY coordinates for plotting
distribution maps.
 
Peter Northover
Dept. of Materials, University of oxford
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