Reevaluating Bone Artifact Collections and Their Histories at the Museum of Northern Arizona

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Storeroom Taphonomies: Site Formation in the Archaeological Archive" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Animal bones and the artifacts manufactured from them have long existed in conflicting archaeological and museum classification systems. Curating institutions once classified them as non-artifactual, or as ecofacts, and only in more recent years have worked animal bones been categorized as artifacts. Regardless of these inconsistencies, many bone artifact assemblages from the American Southwest have been analyzed, although not in earnest, creating inaccurate databases. By reanalyzing bone artifacts from several sites across the Arizona Colorado Plateau and by using comparative collections and braiding methodologies, gaps in their care and identification emerge. From incorrect species identification to poor refitting and lacquering techniques, developing an improved profile of archaeological bone artifacts helps emphasize their significance to Indigenous cultures, update museum databases, and support decolonizing practices by prioritizing the use of collections rather than active excavation. Here, we present several case studies using faunal assemblages from five sites curated at the Museum of Northern Arizona demonstrating the knowledge that can be gained from more descriptive analyses respective of their curatorial histories.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Storeroom Taphonomies: Site Formation in the Archaeological Archive   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38841.0