Combatting the Curation Crisis in North Carolina

Summary

Archaeologists have an obligation to ensure the long-term survival and accessibility of collections that embody the tangible remains of community heritage and collective history. This study presents two examples of collaboration between state- and university-based archaeologists that address the current curation crisis and provide much needed training for future professionals. The North Carolina Office of State Archaeology Research Center (OSARC) is the state’s repository and steward for archaeological materials that are owned or maintained by the state. OSARC faces funding and staffing challenges due to increasing demands of curatorship and recent economic downturns. OSARC and North Carolina State University Anthropology graduate students are collaborating in efforts to mitigate the statewide curation crisis by working with two collections from historic sites that were lost to time for nearly 40 years. The study demonstrates how student involvement in solving the curation crisis also helps future archaeologists develop a sense of responsibility for the collections they produce. These cases exhibit how collaborative work can give emerging professionals an understanding of how to evaluate and prioritize collection restoration/conservation needs, technical skills in collections management, curation and conservation techniques, research potential assessment, and familiarity with the state and federal standards that collections must meet.

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)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage