Conservation and Curation (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Holly Metz.

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 mission of the Huhugam Heritage Center, which is both a tribal and federal repository, is to "ensure our Akimel O’otham and Pee Posh cultures flourish for future generations." This includes not just the physical remains of ancestral culture, but the cultural practices themselves. While we care for the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Franz Manni. Laurence Glémarec. Liliana Huet. Martin Friess.

This is an abstract from the "Body Modification: Examples and Explanations" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Musée de l’Homme hosts several collections corresponding to body modification practices. The collections correspond to body piercing (prehistoric artifacts, casts of living individuals from the nineteenth century, and early photographic images) and to other types of body modification: intentional cranial modifications of various types and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Parris.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The term “curation crisis” describes the challenges facing collections care on a large scale: issues of limited space, staff, and funding and of meeting federal curation standards. Yet, beyond these big picture problems, some of the greatest challenges of managing archaeological collections are the smaller collections problems one inherits from previous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Israel.

I began the "Maryland Archaeology: Past Portrait Project" because I came across many undocumented terrestrial, underwater, and advocational archaeologists in Maryland, and realized they provided a large range of information on Maryland’s forgotten and unacknowledged archaeological activities and accomplishments. My goals for this paper were to document, to the extent possible, many of the forgotten contributors of the late 19th, 20th, and early 21st century archaeological surveys and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Young.

This is an abstract from the "Ideas, Ethical Ideals, and Museum Practice in North American Archaeological Collections" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Place and context give meaning to the artifacts that archaeologists uncover. Yet, artifacts are usually curated in museums and archaeological repositories far from the sites where they were unearthed. This spatial disconnect is often a source of tension for descendant communities. Using the Homolovi...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eve Hargrave. Aimee Carbaugh. Krystiana Lee Krupa.

This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part IV): NAGPRA in Policy, Protocol, and Practice" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first NAGPRA Community of Practice, established in 2019 through the University of Denver, illustrated the vital role communication, listening, and learning plays among institutions and tribal partners as we move forward in fulfilling our NAGPRA...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tim Spahr.

The Cape Porpoise Archaeological Partnership is an alliance between the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust and the Brick Store Museum. Its purpose is to conduct archaeological study of the islands in Cape Porpoise harbor located just off the coast of Kennebunkport, Maine. Evidence suggests that Historic and Pre-Historic Period archaeological sites are present. Sea level rise due to global climate change, however, is causing shoreline erosion damaging or potentially destroying these locations....

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 Maria Martinez.

This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part III)" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In light of the newly proposed Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) regulation concerning “Duty of Care,” this talk hopes to assist you and your institution (regional or national) to navigate and implement best practices for the curation of historical/ethnographic,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Barzilai. Andrea Bridges.

This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part IV): NAGPRA in Policy, Protocol, and Practice" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For over 100 years, large museums, universities, and institutions in the United States have amassed extensive collections of Native American remains and sacred objects from archaeological sites. The outcries of Native American communities who sought to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiziana Gallo. Craig Cipolla.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Birdstones are a morphologically diverse group of ground stone objects found across eastern North America with concentrations around the Great Lakes region. In this paper, we revisit an assemblage of birdstones from the Royal Ontario Museum’s Archaeology of the Americas collection to challenge the fixity of existing birdstone types. Popular among...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaye Smith. Jeffrey Clark.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2015, centenarian Ray Robinson wanted to find a permanent home for thousands of artifacts he collected from numerous sites in the Safford Basin, Arizona during the late 1950s and 1960s, including items from the Bonito Creek Cave Cache. Through a collaborative effort between Archaeology Southwest, Northern Arizona University and the Arizona State Museum...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Nicolay.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Museum collections contain many unique objects from the Greater Southwest that lack complete provenience, especially items from caves and other shrines. These sites often served the region’s inhabitants as both offertory locations and the terminal repositories for ceremonial objects, resulting in enormous and well-preserved assemblages, many composed primarily...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Jennings. Cenetria Crockett. Ashley Smallwood.

This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part IV): NAGPRA in Policy, Protocol, and Practice" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Digital curation has become a critical component of a method of archaeological collection management, and UofL’s CACHe recently received an NEH Foundation grant to develop a collection database. Digital curation helps collection managers organize and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leslie Reeder-Myers.

This is an abstract from the "Ideas, Ethical Ideals, and Museum Practice in North American Archaeological Collections" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Like many small- to medium-sized anthropology departments in North America, Temple University houses a collections repository with a complex and poorly documented past. Beginning in the 1950s, more than 200 collections accumulated with limited direction, including ethnographic collections,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nancy Odegaard.

The scale and diversity of objects held in archaeological repositories is enormous. Collectively, the actions taken to prevent or delay deterioration of these objects and their associated documents and sample collections are referred to as collections care. Preventive conservation identifies the short and long term priorities for collections care. This paper will explore current trends and topics in archaeological collections care including: object stabilization through storage packaging;...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ruth Trocolli. Christine Ames.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. “Can we have our garage back?” The person asking this was storing 50 boxes of collections from data recovery at the 1786 Forrest Marbury House in her garage. Compliance investigations in 1986 were not reported because of a legal loophole, and curation was not funded. DC lacked a curation facility so many of our collections were parked with whoever could...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Hodge.

This is an abstract from the "Ideas, Ethical Ideals, and Museum Practice in North American Archaeological Collections" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There has been a recognized teaching crisis in archaeology for at least 25 years—almost as long as there has been a “curation crisis.” In this reflection, I focus on collections-based university teaching in American archaeology. As in the popular archaeological imaginary, archaeological instruction...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan E. O'Neil.

This paper explores the collecting, repositioning, and separating of ancient Maya objects, both in the ancient past and the twentieth century. Archaeological context provides evidence of ancient Maya aggregation of disparate objects in tombs, caches, or sculptural tableaux as well as evidence of repositioning or separating things. These changes are fundamental aspects of objects’ life histories. Yet in the twentieth century, ancient monuments and object sets also have been divided -- and new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Reamer. Kyle Olson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past 60-plus years, the adoption of more rigorous cultural heritage preservation laws in the U.S. and abroad coupled with a rapid expansion of active practicing archaeologists have led to ever-increasing volumes of archaeological collections. These enormous stores of artifacts and documentation have been acknowledged since the early-1980s as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Lyall.

Museum collections resemble the tastes and character of the donors and curators that assembled them. This subjectivity lends them an idiosyncratic character. Nevertheless, the early network of dealers and donors connects many museums across the United States. Institutions like the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Denver Art Museum, for example, are linked through such relationships. This paper examines the history of such relationships and the manner in which collection histories may shed further...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Kassabaum. Arielle Pierson. Erin Spicola.

This is an abstract from the "Broader Impacts and Teaching: Engaging with Diverse Audiences" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Native American mound sites and their inhabitants are often misunderstood by local communities and are severely underrepresented in educational curricula despite being a primary research focus for North American archaeologists. These monuments stand as testament to the creativity and skill of their builders and provide...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lilia Rivero Weber. Nelly Robles García.

This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse: Current Research in Oaxaca Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Enclavado en la entrada de la región de la Sierra de Juárez, Oaxaca, San Pedro Nexicho es una comunidad zapoteca asentada sobre los vestigios arqueológicos de un sitio que data de la época Clásica y Posclásica, en cuya época más tardía constituyó el Señorío de Ixtepeji. A partir del año 2015 la fundación Alfredo Harp Helú se interesó...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebekah Mills.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nestled in the hidden heartlands of Roscommon, Ireland is Ballintober Castle. Ballintober Castle and its surrounding deserted village are the site of an archeological field school, Castles in Communities. As the field school progresses into its fifth year, castle conservation becomes more important for continuing archeological work and maintaining the cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Bryant. Marla Taylor. Laura Elliff Cruz.

This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part III)" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Museums and academic institutions are beginning to reexamine their collections stewardship and daily practice by inviting Indigenous voices and perspectives into the conversation. This is becoming particularly relevant with the proposed addition of duty of care to the NAGPRA regulations....