Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2024, updates to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) strengthened the legal and ethical responsibilities of U.S. museum staff regarding Indigenous North American collections. This has inspired many museums to rethink and enhance their exhibits, leading to meaningful discussions on better ways to manage and present these collections. The new regulations have also fostered a more inclusive and collaborative approach to exhibits beyond NAGPRA's scope. Within this context, archaeologists and museum professionals are embracing the opportunity to rethink their research, bringing forward new perspectives and voices through increased collaboration. With NAGPRA now requiring informed consent for research and exhibitions of existing collections, there is a renewed emphasis on responsible stewardship that applies not only to Indigenous North American collections but also to all cultural collections. We share case studies that highlight the challenges faced, the strategies developed to overcome them, and the successes achieved, along with areas that need further improvement. This examination underscores the ethical stewardship required in our work, balancing research goals, Tribal rights, the desires of living communities both within and beyond NAGPRA, and public expectations as we navigate the complexities of managing legacy collections.

Other Keywords
Ethics • North America • Indigenous • Conservation and Curation

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • [Animal] Skeletons in the Closet: Decolonizing Comparative Faunal Collections (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Max Schrader.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Northern Arizona University, Department of Anthropology, Faunal Analysis Laboratory (NAUDAFAL) prioritizes decolonizing zooarchaeology through our work. Despite this mission, the lab’s comparative collection is stored and organized in alignment with arbitrary Euro-Western epistemologies and lacks Indigenous perspectives for...

  • BLM Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center Reinvigorating NAGPRA at BLM Canyons of the Ancients (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Bridget Ambler.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As a Department of Interior (DOI) museum and the largest of three repositories within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum (CANM) curates cultural materials from permitted archaeological projects, and numerous items from law enforcement actions and private donations. With...

  • Challenging the tales of extinction: Natives in historical representations and the analysis of Panama Viejo ceramic collections (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana Navas-Méndez.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I discuss the process of conducting decolonial research to make visible the contribution of non-European groups in the construction of colonial Panama. In general, archaeologists have researched Spanish settlements in the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, focusing mostly on the restoration and preservation of...

  • Confronting a Legacy Collection in a Student-Curated Exhibit (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Raad.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Curating legacy archaeological collections poses complex challenges while offering an opportunity to engage students in critical dialogue about museum ethics, provenance research, and the politics of display. Stanford University students in my Spring 2024 course “Introduction to Museum Practice” grappled witih the purpose,...

  • Creating Histories through Collections: Native American Women and Museum Spaces (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Fladd.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Museums, along with broader discipline of anthropology, are undoing significant ethical shifts as the field confronts the legacies of colonialism. In addition to rethinking how we make exhibits, label materials, and approach repatriations, we are also increasingly considering how collections were formed and their implications for...

  • Deinstalling a Legacy Exhibit: Practical Advice and Lessons Learned from the Deinstallation of the North American Indian Cultures Hall at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Erika Heacock.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In June 2023, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) closed its North American Indian Cultures Hall (NAICH), a legacy exhibit from the 1970s. In doing so, museum staff hoped to heal the harm caused by racist stereotypes perpetuated in the exhibit, and to repair broken relationships with Indigenous communities. When the doors...

  • Examining the Unexamined: Peruvian Archaeological Textiles from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Dawson.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses collaboration between the Avenir Conservation Center and Curators at Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS) through an on-going Textile Research Project. The current stage of research focuses on archaeological textiles from Peru. So far 200 archaeological textiles from Peru have been identified. This...

  • Macrobotanicals from the Attic: Legacy Data at Bartram’s Garden (Philadelphia, PA) (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandria Mitchem.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1977, historic preservation specialists working at Bartram’s Garden (Philadelphia, PA) uncovered a surprising find under the floorboards of the attic of the family home. Over five kilograms of material had been cached by rodents over the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Established in 1728 by botanist John Bartram, the garden...

  • Museum Collections and Metadata: Creating a Plural Approach within a Collections Management System (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Blaser.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The UM Museum of Anthropological Archaeology (UMMAA) is now over 100 years old and curates a materially diverse, global collection. A research-centered mission, as well as an emphasis on processual archaeology, has deeply influenced UMMAA’s collections and associated records. This legacy data reflects norms of the times, curatorial...

  • Processing Legacy: Caring for and Learning from the WS Ranch Archaeological Collection (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Kriebel.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The WS Ranch Site (800-1300 CE) is an Upper Mogollon archaeological site near Alma, New Mexico excavated by a field school program at the University of Texas, Austin from 1977-1993. The collection remained unprocessed and unpublished in its original field bags at the university until 2018 when the Denver Museum of Nature & Science...

  • Repatriation Education for Small Institutions: State-Local Collaboration at the Laurens County Museum (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Lindler.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Duty of Care provisions of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) took effect on January 12, 2024 (43 CFR 10.1(d)), eliciting immediate response across archaeology sectors. Media coverage of exhibit closures at high-profile institutions brought public attention to the regulatory revision and caused...

  • Taking a Different Strand: Approaching Perishable Collections in Dissertation Research (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Byram.

    This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Perishable material study often present significant challenges in the form of preservation bias and loss during collecting practices. However, perishables are often even more difficult to study due to their frequent association with mortuary contexts and sacred sites in regions and contexts where their preservation is otherwise...