Museums, Collections, and Repatriation (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Martinez. Esther Rimer.

As museum object collections continue to be an important mainstay to anthropological research, collections access is in high demand, and can sometimes feel like a daunting task. This is particularly relevant when working with large museums such as the Smithsonian Institution. Knowing where collections are housed, the scope of collections, and means of access for data including collections history, images, and archival material contributes significantly to achievement of research goals. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Crews. C. L. Kieffer. Magdalena Wantschik.

In light of more and more museums relying upon volunteers, this study investigates the accuracy of museum volunteers taking measurements of projectile points for the purpose of documentation. Data collection was done by two archaeologists trained in lithic analysis, one anthropologist previously not trained in lithic analysis, and two retired volunteers with no previous training in lithic analysis. Volunteers received a crash course in measuring greatest length, width, and thickness prior to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacy Dunn. Abigail Bennett.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cuchimilcos are small painted clay figurines and are one of the most recognized artifacts from ancient coastal Peru. They are associated frequently with the Chancay culture (1100-1400 AD) but are found throughout the central and north coast. Although most museums have one, little is certain about their purpose in society. To address the questions of function...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sabrina Sholts.

Biomolecular analyses have revolutionized the field of archaeology in the 21st century. Rapid advances in technology have lowered barriers to biomolecular information by increasing the speed, affordability, and effectiveness with which researchers can extract and analyze biomolecules from ancient materials. Amid growing attention on museum collections as a source of samples for biomolecular research, the people who curate and manage these collections are faced with new challenges and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Luze.

The Anthropology collections at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) have a long history of treatment with pesticides and contact with other materials that contain potentially hazardous elements. When the NMNH Repatriation Office began to use portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) technology, it focused on identifying potentially hazardous elements on archaeology, ethnology, and physical anthropology collections. If identified, the Repatriation Office attempted to determine the source of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elaine Hughes.

This is an abstract from the "To Curate or Not to Curate: Surprises, Remorse, and Archaeological Grey Area" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) is a private institution, yet 89% of its archaeological holdings are from federal, tribal, and state lands. The story of how MNA acquired these collections is rooted in its founding in 1928 by a group of local citizens under the leadership of Dr. Harold S. and Mary-Russell...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nina Schreiner.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many field archaeologists have firsthand experience encountering locals who practice site looting and artifact collection. These globally widespread problems are addressed in professional ethics statements and legislature at international, federal, state, and local levels. Publications in archaeological journals and heritage-related news sources have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Lekson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After almost three decades in museums and allied institutions, I have some ideas about the challenges and opportunities facing archaeological curation, especially in the western United States. This poster presents several of these themes – the permanent curation crisis, UFOs and CUIs, legacy collections, changing audiences, and of course Tribal collaborations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arlene Alvarez. Corinne Hofman.

The first Dominican heritage legislation indicates that there were private collecting practices of local archaeological materials already by the end of the 19th Century. Heritage museums formed archaeological collections with donations or purchases from private collectors who often depended on individuals that made a business out of locating sites with the desired pieces. The continued institutionalization of collections without context that gave rise to several museums has contributed to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeannine Pedersen-Guzman. Jason LaBelle.

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. Colorado State University is one of many universities and museums with extensive collections of archaeological material. Each institution has unique and noteworthy collections with material specific to the region and to the research interests of faculty and curators. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Salem. Effie F. Athanassopoulos.

Since its rediscovery in 1748, Pompeii has remained a destination for travelers and tourists from around the globe. Originally, a tourist destination during the Grand Tour, mainly in the 17th-18th centuries, Pompeii attracted the educated elite. In the course of the 19th century, the site was transformed into an open-air museum and became accessible to a broader group of visitors seeking an authentic experience. This presentation offers a glimpse at a tourist’s experience in the early 1900s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rosemary Joyce.

Archaeology in the US is undergoing a series of transformations, emphasizing community engaged scholarship, new research questions of contemporary relevance dealing with such things as resilience, social memory, and production of historical identity, and a shift towards non-invasive methods and intensive analyses of smaller samples from more limited excavations. Yet the normative vision of archaeological research still is original excavation of a site selected purposively to answer a question,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Platt.

This is an abstract from the ""Re-excavating" Legacy Collections" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The collections excavated in the 1970s at 87 Church Street in downtown Charleston, South Carolina play a crucial role as part of a repertoire of sites deployed to understand Charleston as a critical urban center and waypoint in the eighteenth-century American southeast. However, a full site report does not exist for these early excavations, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bonnie Clark.

This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sourcing of lithic raw material often challenges preconceived notions of the relationships between people, places, and objects for time periods prior to written records. But what of historic obsidian? What can sourcing reveal about the more recent past? This paper presents the case study of a most amazing historical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angela Neller. Lourdes Henebry-DeLeon.

The 20 year journey to repatriation of the Ancient One was long, arduous, frustrating, eye opening, and an education in the NAGPRA law. Over the years we have discovered how poorly understood the law can be. In the case of the Ancient One, the ownership or control of his remains falls under Section 3 of NAGPRA for inadvertent discoveries on federal lands after 1990. An overview of the evidentiary standard applicable to cultural affiliation determinations under NAGPRA will be presented. All...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Feest. Viviane Luiza da Silva.

From the Philosophical Voyage to Brazil of Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira in 1791 to the Brazilian fieldwork of the young philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss from 1936 to 1938, nearly 4000 Bororo artifacts and more than 300 Kadiwéu pots were collected for museums in Europe and the United States by naturalists, anthropologists, missionaries, artists, and adventurers. What began as part of the project of the Enlightenment to catalog the world based on the principles of Linnean taxonomy turned into a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tim Riley.

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. The Ephraim P. and Dorothy Hickman Pectol Collection, probably the largest single collection of Fremont-associated perishable artifacts, was donated to the Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum in the Spring of 2017. Most of this collection was amassed from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lourdes Henebry-DeLeon.

In looking at all available population specific data for the Columbia Plateau, the Ancient One falls within the variability exhibited on the southern Columbia Plateau at the same time period and throughout time. He was not outside of the norm for the population existing during the Early Cascade period when he was alive and for the population that followed for which he has a shared group identity. The Ancient One’s biological identity, cranial morphology, stable isotope values, and DNA data...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lourdes Henebry-DeLeon. Angela Neller.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. NAGPRA’s preponderance of evidence standard is utilized to demonstrate a relationship of shared group identity between the Ancient One (Kennewick Man) and the Colville, Nez Perce, Umatilla, Wanapum, and Yakama tribes. Data is presented within the evidentiary standard applicable to cultural affiliation determinations under Section 3 of NAGPRA. Scientific...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Roxanne Recinos. Sarah Rowe.

This is an abstract from the "Working with the Community in Ecuador" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations began in Dos Mangas in 2006, and continued with excavation of a Valdivia village site, Buen Suceso, in 2009. Those and subsequent excavations carried out by Sarah Rowe have combined archaeological inquiry with community engagement activities such as presentations in the primary school, workshops for community guides,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenna Domeischel.

This is an abstract from the "Navigating Ethical and Legal Quandaries in Modern Archaeological Curation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In early 2017 a human skull was left outside the front door of the Blackwater Draw Museum in Portales, New Mexico. No one saw it arrive; it was simply there when the museum opened that morning. Facilities that curate or display archaeological materials encounter situations such as this more frequently than one...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Benden.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samuel Carreon. Rita Austin. Sabrina Sholts.

Studying teeth in museum archaeological collections allows us to address questions about diet, health, and the environment. One common health indicator is the rate and frequencies of in pathological indicators such as carious lesions (cavities) within a population. Changes in the amount of caries over time in a population show the changes in diet which may reflect cultural or environmental changes. Through museum collections we are able to look at caries and asses the relationship between oral...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abigail Diaz.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Health, Wellness, and Ability" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Museums were created for educated, wealthy, able-bodied white men. This legacy of exclusion is one that museums find difficult to accept and then rectify. As museum goers begin to expect more and incoming museum professionals demand change, these institutions have gradually begun to shift elitist paradigms into one of accessibility and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Benitez.

The Central American Ceramics Research Project, a student driven and collaborative research program carried out between 2009-2013, completed a scholarly survey of more than 13,000 ceramic objects in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). The project originated as an effort to update old catalog information and bring to light important but largely forgotten collections of ceramics. However, it quickly developed into a major collaborative research effort that brought...