Collections-based research (Other Keyword)
1-8 (8 Records)
Despite their critical importance, the care and management of archaeological collections has not always been at the forefront of the discipline’s overall methodology or federal and state regulations that are intended to mitigate harm to those resources. A seminal paper by Marquardt et al. (1982) argued for the existence of a crisis in the curation of archaeological collections. Marquardt, et al. (1982) as well as Childs (1995, 2003) and Sonderman (1996) highlight the ethical responsibility to...
A Career to Celebrate: The Achievements of S. Terry Childs and Her Impact on Archaeological Collections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "How to Conduct Museum Research and Recent Research Findings in Museum Collections: Posters in Honor of Terry Childs" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For many years, S. Terry Childs has led the charge on all things related to archaeological curation and collections management. With a keen focus, she has carried the torch on training and practice, shining a light on archaeological collections and the need for their...
Dust-Lined Boxes and Warehouses: A Re-Analysis of 17th Century Archaeological Collections from Fort Eustis, VA (2016)
Considering the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), critical evaluation of two of historical archaeology’s primary functions, fieldwork and collection management, appears to be timely and essential. As Julia King’s 2014 post to the Society for Historical Archaeology’s blog notes, current circumstances appear to favor the generation of new artifactual remains rather than the need to process and catalogue what is already unearthed. However, if historical archaeology...
From "Gray Literature" to "Big Data": Synthesizing Archaeological Data in Washington, DC (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Adventures in Spatial Archaeometry: A Survey of Recent High-Resolution Survey and Measurement Applications" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The vast array of technical reports produced through cultural resources management (CRM) archaeology are sometimes referred to as “gray literature,” due to their limited reuse after the project is completed. However, archaeologists working in CRM excavate the majority of sites in...
Interpreting the Sherds: Ceramic Consumption Practices in a Nineteenth Century Detroit Riverfront Neighborhood. (2016)
Following the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, Detroit became an emerging urban and industrial center. During the early-mid 19th century, private homes, hotels, manufacturers, and grocery stores densely populated the neighborhood along the Detroit River. Over 19,000 artifacts from this waterfront neighborhood were recovered in 1973-74, during the construction of the Renaissance Center, within a 9-city block area. The Renaissance Center Collection ceramics tell a rich story of various...
Life Course as Slow Bioarchaeology: Recovering the Lives of Laborers and Immigrants in an Anatomical Collection (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Slow Archaeology + Fast Capitalism: Hard Lessons and Future Strategies from Urban Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. I consider the potentials of a slow bioarchaeology of the Huntington Anatomical collection, focusing on the collection’s Irish immigrants, who lived and worked in New York City in the nineteenth century. Taking the skeleton as a record of experience, life course approaches interpret...
Reflecting on the History and Use of Rectangular Obsidian "Mirrors" from Central Mexico: Reinterpreting Old Museum Collections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper highlights the relevance and potential of collections-based research through a case study of rectangular obsidian "mirrors" from Central Mexico, typically associated with the Aztec, housed at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). To date these highly polished obsidian objects are found exclusively in museum...
Shaping the City from Detroit’s Rediscovered Archaeological Collections (2015)
Unearthing Detroit is a collections-based and community archaeology research project focused on the extensive salvage collections recovered from major downtown construction projects during the 1960s and 70s that are now housed in Wayne State University’s Grosscup Museum of Anthropology. Inspired by the findings of recent collections-based research at Market Street Chinatown (San Jose) and CoVA’s Repositories Survey, Unearthing Detroit project members revisited the Renaissance Center collections...