The Central American Ceramics Research Project: A Case Study on How to Make Old Museum Collections Relevant Again

Summary

The Central American Ceramics Research Project, a student driven and collaborative research program carried out between 2009-2013, completed a scholarly survey of more than 13,000 ceramic objects in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). The project originated as an effort to update old catalog information and bring to light important but largely forgotten collections of ceramics. However, it quickly developed into a major collaborative research effort that brought together university students, archaeologists and museum specialists from the U.S. and Central America, established new partnerships between the Smithsonian Institution and Embassy staff from various Central American countries, and ultimately served as the basis for the NMAI’s longest running temporary exhibition, "Ceramica de los Ancestros: Central America’s Past Revealed." This paper describes the CACRP’s history and scholarly research, and offers it as one student driven case study in how to make old museum collections relevant again.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22609