Conservation and Curation (Other Keyword)
151-175 (204 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As archaeologists, we have a heightened awareness that the objects we discard in our daily lives persist and tell a story about contemporary society. But do we give enough consideration to the items we discard through the process of archaeological research? In 2012, an article published in the SAA Archaeological Record titled “Zero Waste Archaeology”...
Rehabilitating the Radiocarbon Sample Archive at the Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since at least 1972, the Center for Applied Isotope Studies (CAIS) at the University of Georgia (UGA) has maintained an archive of the pretreated and unpretreated remnants of samples sent for radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analysis. This growing archive now contains over 15,000 archaeological and geological specimens. In August 2022, CAIS initiated...
Relatedness, Circularity, and Place-Centeredness in Belle Glade Artifacts: Reevaluating South Florida Collections from an Ontological Framework (2019)
This is an abstract from the ""Re-excavating" Legacy Collections" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Museum collections provide a quintessential database for archaeological studies, yet they are often overlooked in favor of new excavations that eventually add to museum collections. While new excavations provide us valuable insight into the communities of the past, reevaluating existing collections can provide us with entirely new interpretations of...
Remorseful Returns: What to do with Returned Surface-Collected Items from National Park Service Units (2019)
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...
Repatriating Cahokia: Pursuing Tribal Priorities in and around NAGPRA (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The NAGPRA Office at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is in the process of coordinating a multi-tribe, multi-institution project with the goal of repatriating Ancestors and cultural items from the Cahokia site, near present-day East St. Louis. This presentation summarizes the development and current status of the project, as well as its future...
Repository Reflections: Where’s the Humanity? (2018)
As the neutral repository appointed by the court, the Burke Museum has played a unique and often frustrating role as temporary caretaker of the Ancient One/Kennewick Man. Decisions on overall curation, research and access resided with the US Army Corps of Engineers, yet the Burke provided the environment, security, and safety. Museum standards of access and care are not straightforward, and staff tried to balance ideas of neutrality and bioethics with real people and their needs. The Ancient One...
Rescuing Collections from Us: The Tijeras Pueblo Story (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and Public Education at Tijeras Pueblo, New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most of the archaeological collections from Tijeras Pueblo were submitted to the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico. As was typical at the time, the collections were stored in a warehouse, using non-archival materials, with only minimal records about what was stored where. Beginning...
Research Opportunities in Archaeology at the Fowler Museum at UCLA (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. The Fowler Museum Archaeology Collections is the largest repository of Los Angeles history. It has maintained the research materials and excavations of UCLA academics and local researchers since 1941. The collections consist of approximately 1.5 million artifacts ranging...
Resources, Goals, and Standards: The Basics of Digitizing Archaeological Collections and Legacy Materials (2018)
Digitization, the conversion of an analog item and creation a digital surrogate, is an important collections management tool. Digitizing collection materials can provide engaging images for public outreach and education, improve knowledge of the collection and access. It also aids in the preservation of materials by creating digital surrogates of content. Digitizing material can rescue content from obsolete media, provide a way for researchers to view content while protecting fragile, physical...
Respecting the Sacred Power of Indigenous Collections and Museum Staff (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Indigenous cultural protocols impact consultation with museums in numerous ways. Tribal perspectives on feminine power that is most evident during menstruation can challenge non-Native ways of working with museum collections. This poster will discuss ways in which museum staff negotiate unfamiliar cultural practices during tribal consultation. Respect for...
Restoring Relationships: Connecting Nunatsiavummiut to Their (In)tangible Cultural Heritage throughout the World (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Current Research and Challenges in Arctic and Subarctic Cultural Heritage Studies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Settler colonialism is a disruption of Indigenous relationships. As a tool of settler colonialism, archaeology and collecting in particular have caused a disruption of relationships between Indigenous people, their land, their (in)tangible cultural heritage (Gray 2022), their Ancestors, and their pasts,...
Resuscitating a Dying City: Instilling Pride Through Public History and Archaeology (2018)
Palatka is dying. This is not a metaphor or an over-dramatic attempt to garner pity: Census reports show that more people are moving out of the city or dying than are moving in or being born. In August of 2017 the Washington Post came down to write an obituary on the quiet river town that was once known as the Gem of the St. Johns River. Buried in the ground and in dusty books in the historic society's museum are testaments to the city's rich historic and prehistoric past, yet few if any...
Reviewing the 2023 Intensive NAGPRA Summer Training & Education Program (INSTEP) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part I)" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The national need for NAGPRA and repatriation education is widely recognized in the museum and tribal communities. In July 2023, the authors co-facilitated the first Intensive NAGPRA Summer Training & Education Program (INSTEP), funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. This presentation reviews the...
Revisiting the Polychromatic Stucco of Lamanai, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A significant assemblage of Late to Terminal Classic stucco was discovered at the archaeological site of Lamanai in northern Belize. Originally forming a frieze adorning the upper facade of the palatial Structure N10-28, the stucco fragments are remarkable for their overall preservation and their extensive polychromatic pigmentation. In 2023 a new phase of...
Reviving Collections “At Rest”: Examining Recent Efforts to Promote Collections Research at CFAR (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The struggle to manage collections generated through the process of archeological activity is ongoing despite decades of attempts to resolve the “curation crisis.” Artifacts collected in the field and their associated records are most often shelved in curatorial facilities and storage closets prone to disassociation and decay. In the best circumstances,...
Riparian Protection and Restoration as a Necessary Mitigation Practice (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Work by Chronicle Heritage" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When looking at the cultural landscape archaeological surveys often only consider the direct effects that construction projects have on observed cultural resources. Secondary effects such as erosion from construction activity, building usage, and waste deposition are often ignored. Disturbances to the seven aspects of site integrity often...
The Risks and Benefits of Working with Private Collections: Lessons from the COADS Project (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Privately held collections are an endangered part of the archaeological record that the SAA’s "Principles of Archaeological Ethics" directs us preserve. The Central Ohio Archaeological Digitization Survey (COADS) is undertaking the documentation of dozens of private collections in central Ohio. By September 2018 it recorded over 15,000 artifacts and added over...
Rooms in Rome: Production, Function, and Conservation of Ancient Roman Mosaics and Frescoes (2018)
In this poster, we explore the production and conservation of mosaics and frescoes, examining their co-occurrence in high elite domestic spaces and how they reveal the varying function(s) of these spaces. Citing both archaeological examples from Villa Cotanello and Villa di San Cesareo, each about a day’s journey from Rome, as well as museum collections, we emphasize the importance of conservation. Standard archaeological practice often consists of removing objects from in situ contexts and...
The Salmon Pueblo Archaeological Research Collection (SPARC) Project : Making the Data Accessible (2018)
Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Salmon Pueblo Archaeological Research Collection (SPARC) Project was initiated in 2015 by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, Salmon Ruins Museum, and Archaeology Southwest. The primary goal of the SPARC Project is creation of an online digital archive of materials from excavations at Salmon Pueblo...
Sampling Archaeology at the National Museum of Natural History (2018)
The Anthropology department at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History holds over 2.2 million ethnological and archaeological artifacts from the USA and all over the world in its collections, including archaeofauna and bioarchaeological specimens. Every year a handful of researchers sample from our collections for destructive and non-destructive sampling analysis. These analyses run the gamut from portable XRF on textile dyes, isotope analysis of oyster shells from...
Sand, Chute, Carts, and Waddles: Eagle Cave and Bonfire Shelter Restoration Project (2018)
Eagle Nest Canyon, a box canyon draining into the Rio Grande in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas, houses Bonfire Shelter, the oldest and southernmost bison jump site in North America. Bonfire was excavated in 1963-64 and again in 1983-1984, leaving open a 3m-deep excavation block. Nearby Eagle Cave was excavated in the 1930s and again in 1963, leaving the central trench unfilled. In 2015-2016, the Ancient Southwest Texas Project of Texas State University re-excavated the 4-meter...
Seeing Archaeology When You Can’t See: A Pilot Project for Blind/Low-Vision Museum Visitors (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Outreach and Education: Examples of Approaches and Strategies from the Pacific Northwest" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In October 2019, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture on the UW campus in Seattle reopened to the public in its new home, with an “inside-out” approach that invites audiences to visibly connect more deeply with the life of the museum. Galleries sit side-by-side with visible collection...
“A Sense of Stewardship”: Assessing the Archives of Alexandria Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Storeroom Taphonomies: Site Formation in the Archaeological Archive" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1961, the city of Alexandria, Virginia financed one of the first municipally funded archaeological projects in the country, laying the groundwork for today’s Alexandria Archaeology which curates three million artifacts from over 250 sites. Since the 1960s, the program has witnessed urban renewal, the birth of the CRM...
Solutions for Stabilizing and Caring for Inorganic Archaeological Collections (2018)
Inorganic archaeological objects (e.g., stone, glass, ceramic, and metal) may require special care as a result of their archaeological context or properties of composition or manufacture. This paper reviews the agents of deterioration specific to inorganic archaeological objects and demonstrates how to identify preservation concerns and stabilize sensitive collections. Specifically, the use of silica gel storage for archaeological metal will be discussed and demonstrated.
Solutions for Stabilizing and Caring for Organic Archaeological Collections (2018)
Care of archaeological materials should begin in the field. Care and stabilizing of objects, if started in the field, will greatly increase the objects research and exhibit potential when it finally finds a home in a museum. How do you identify problems and then what do you do? Proper care and stabilization of objects can and should be a priority for all object users—excavators, lab analysts, museum staff, and researchers. In this paper, object care, conservation environments and stabilizing...