Ethical Consumption and Archaeological Ethics: a case study in the responsible treatment of cultural collections and the resulting lessons learned

Summary

The backlog of curated archaeological collections can be overwhelming; and the notion of taking on another’s "work" can seem very daunting and at times, considering who the "other" might be, down right intimidating. So many variables add to the challenge of assuming the responsibility of a curated collection, but they also offer great potential for personal, academic and professional growth. It is the prospect, after all, of finding the missing piece to the puzzle and making sense of the conundrum of artifacts, field notes and the like that motivates us as archaeologists. This presentation will focus on one budding archaeologist’s experience with a significant site, deliberated by an impressive assemblage of established archaeologists, and a resulting collection which had sat dormant for over 30 years – the Burton Mound collection of CA-SBA-28. In retrospect, the capabilities gleaned from conducting research on an existing collection have proven invaluable and stretch far past just the scholarly familiarity which would be expected. The opportunity to follow in the proverbial footsteps of an esteemed archaeologist and to employ his former research as a blueprint for future examination has provided invaluable lessons that the presenter hopes will inspire others to consider doing the same.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Crisis and Opportunity: Legacy Collections and Archaeological Research in the 21st Century

Keywords

Spatial Coverage