Museums, Collections, and Repatriation (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angela Cooper.

During the 18th century, European-Americans created a myth regarding the earthen mounds found throughout the eastern United States. This myth indicated that a western people, possibly the Lost Tribe of Israel, had inhabited North America and established cities throughout this region. They then succumbed to Native American savagery and brutality and were eradicated. Over time, archaeologists disproved the myth by conducting excavations and demonstrated the cultural similarities between the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only C. L. Kieffer.

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. Following rules and common courtesy go a long way in the realm of research, and museums research is no different. Yet, the museum world is so different from the field and most degree course work typically does not cover how to conduct museum based research. Therefore you...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Knoerlein.

With a background in forensics, David Knoerlein, vice president of Forensic Digital Imaging, is a certified evidence photographer who has developed a new and innovative process for the digital documentation of artifacts. Mr. Knoerlein will demonstrate how to capture museum quality images right out of the camera. Utilizing a customized tabletop camera station, he will demonstrate how to capture detailed diagnostic images of artifacts with pure white (shadowless) backgrounds. This combination of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lenore Thompson.

This is an abstract from the "Cabinets of Curiosities: Collections and Conservation in Archaeological Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Museum assemblages enable and support conservation archaeologies by facilitating comprehensive and multifaceted studies that consider large study areas, time depth, and multiple artifact types. Museums can also work to facilitate ethical research practices by supporting conversation and collaboration...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wendy Sutton.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Collections: Federal Archaeology and "New Discoveries" under NAGPRA" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres and over 277,000 recorded sites throughout the United States; NAGPRA has become integral to how we conduct work. Developing POAs with tribes prior to intentional excavations has helped foster increased communication and collaboration; tribal roles in decision making...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Sears.

The long-term exploration of Formative fluorescence within the Veracruz region of Mexico has been supported through mid-20th century archaeological excavations and collection management protocols of the Smithsonian Institution’s Natural History Museum Department of Anthropology. The Olmec site of Tres Zapotes has been a focus of archaeological investigation since 1938 by Smithsonian’s Bureau of American Ethnology Director, Matthew Stirling. Research at the site continues to explore the regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Benden. Mara Taft.

Legacy collections—those typically generated decades ago that do not meet current professional curation standards and require a substantial resource investment for long-term preservation—are housed in nearly every archaeological repository across the country. Many are the result of under-funded university field schools or public archaeology projects that didn’t account for either the initial curation preparation or the long-term costs and maintenance of collections care. The deeply stratified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn MacFarland. Arthur Vokes. Suzanne Eckert. Patrick Lyons.

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. For many decades, the Arizona State Museum (ASM) used a flat-rate curation model that proved unsustainable. It did not cover the costs of reviewing incoming materials for compliance with the Arizona Antiquities Act (AAA), preparing submissions for curation, or care in perpetuity. Furthermore, inadequate funding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Lyons. Don Burgess. Marilyn Marshall. Jaye Smith.

Emil Haury's 1958 synthesis of the Pueblo III-Pueblo IV period (A.D. 1265-1450) archaeology of Point of Pines Pueblo, in east-central Arizona, is the US Southwest's classic case study in how to reliably infer ancient migrations. Field school excavations conducted between 1946 and 1960 uncovered compelling traces of immigrants from the Kayenta region of far northeastern Arizona and southeastern Utah. Noting evidence of a fire in the part of the pueblo referred to as the Maverick Mountain phase...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jared Katz.

Over the past several years, the Maya Music Project has documented over 430 ancient Maya musical instruments. In addition to photographing all of the instruments, over 160 musical artifacts have been 3D scanned, and audio recordings were made of many of the artifacts. This paper will focus on the typological analysis of instruments based not only on their stylistic and technological attributes, but also on the tones the instruments are able to produce, as it is clear the artisans who created...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Porter. Christopher Hoffman. Kea Johnston.

The growth in object photogrammetry standards and techniques offers new opportunities for university museums concerned with collections care, research, education, and public engagement. The Phoebe Hearst Museum’s global collection of 3.8 million objects spanning two million years and six continents presents an ideal context in which to explore such opportunities and work through interesting challenges. This paper describes how UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and students are collaborating on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Rogerson Jennings.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The practice of collections management is changing with the ever-growing technology that is embedded in society today. The museum's visitor no longer receives information on an analog platform, or at least not the majority of it, so why is this the main form of communication between museums and patrons? This creates a necessity for museums to alter their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brittany Hundman. Alyssa M. Tate. Jonathan Heile.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Established field sample collection procedures have fostered misconceptions of the vulnerable nature of organic materials destined for radiocarbon dating. To address common contamination concerns and debunk these misconceptions, wood samples of known age were intentionally exposed to a variety of substances found in the field and the lab, including coffee,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elise LeCompte.

This is an abstract from the ""Re-excavating" Legacy Collections" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The analysis of legacy collections is often hampered by documentation that is fragmentary, preserved on obsolete media, or entirely absent. Like the physical material that makes up a legacy collection, the associated documents may be spread across institutions. This may include other museums, educational facilities, government agencies, and private...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Teara Farrow Ferman.

The Claimant Tribes worked whole-heartedly together for 20 years for the return of the Ancient One to his homelands. Throughout those twenty years, many partnerships were made with academia and federal agencies. However many challenges were encountered during the NAGPRA process. These challenges provided unexpected hurtles and trials for the Claimant Tribes in their fight for a cultural affiliation determination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The range of challenges the Claimant Tribes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Keri Hicks. Theresa Thibault. John Kinsner.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Collections: Federal Archaeology and "New Discoveries" under NAGPRA" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Post-1990 inadvertent discoveries are not uncommon but visiting a reported discovery is costly, typically requiring personnel to boat or fly to remote locations to verify land ownership as well as age and affiliation of the remains. An additional challenge is the common knowledge that some individuals were buried...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashleigh Breske.

This theoretically-oriented project engages discussions of historical arguments for the repatriation of indigenous cultural property that ultimately led to the creation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990. I will investigate how institutions and cultural values mediated changes in repatriation policy both nationally and internationally. By examining ownership paradigms and institutional power structures, it is possible to understand the ramifications of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Burt.

The history of physical anthropology contains figures and movements that improperly used science to hurt or diminish other groups or was utilized by such movements after publication. This haunted past can manifest as a bumpy future for modern practitioners working under a shadow of racial typology, eugenics, and other horrific applications of their science. Anthropologists continue to be haunted where our peers in anatomy or biology are not, due in part, to our theoretical approach as a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Ordoñez. Tamara Landivar. Lourdes Torres.

There are many collections of Tsantsas around the world. These shrunken heads were created by the Shuar and Achuar peoples of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian amazon until the mid-20th century. Though most of these museum collections have a known provenience, the individual histories and the authenticity of some of the heads has been contested. Similar questions have risen for Tsantsas held at the Pumapungo Ethnographic museum in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador. Using the approach of museum...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Zimmer.

This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Anatomical skeletal collections have often been framed as encompassing "the poorest of the poor" or the most marginalized of a given society. This framework has shaped the way that these collections have been studied for decades. A queered understanding of how these collections were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Molly Kamph.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2017, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Anthropology began a two-year collaborative project through the Smithsonian’s Collections Care and Preservation Fund aiming to connect the archival and artifact collections of paleo-archaeologists Drs. Ralph S. and Rose L. Solecki, known for their work at Shanidar Cave in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaye Smith. Kelley Hays-Gilpin. Linda Pierce. Chris Downum.

In 1957, Arizona State Museum director Emil Haury, ranch owner Ray Claridge and geologist/avocational Ray Robinson visited the Bonito Creek site in Arizona’s Safford Basin as reported by Wasley in 1962. Robinson returned to the site after that initial visit to "save" many objects that Haury did not take with him that day, along with "prospecting" other sites during the 1960s in the Safford Basin being threatened by development. For 59 years, Robinson preserved these objects along with limited...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aaron Glass. Judith Berman.

Franz Boas's 1897 report, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, was a landmark in anthropology for its integrative approach to museum collections, photographs, and sound recordings as well as text. However, both Boas and his Indigenous collaborator George Hunt remained dissatisfied with the published text, laboring for decades to correct and supplement it. They left behind a vast archive of materials related to the book’s creation and afterlife that are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sharyl Kinnear-Ferris.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Collections: Federal Archaeology and "New Discoveries" under NAGPRA" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recovery and reburial of inadvertent discoveries of exposed pre-Columbian human remains has repeatedly occurred at a remote archaeological site along the Lost Coast of the King Range National Conservation Area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management-Arcata Field Office. The site is located in a remote area,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gwenn Gallenstein.

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. Millions of surface-collected artifacts (and natural features for that matter) have been and are being stolen from public lands by visitors. Some are returned, often with letters indicating guilt and remorse. Most of these items have little to no provenience information attached. This paper demonstrates the...