Curation and Conservation for Reburial: Balancing Respect and Discovery

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Individuals Known and Unknown: Case Studies from Two Burial Contexts at Colonial Williamsburg" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the last three decades, archaeological approaches to the excavation of human burials have radically shifted. These changes have demanded a large-scale reevaluation of the decision-making processes and research practices deployed not only during these excavations, but also in the approaches to curation and disposition after excavation is finished. From a collections’ perspective, this shift highlighted the need for the development of practices centered on the ethical treatment of materials associated with burial contexts and in support of repatriation efforts. This paper explores the interaction of curation and conservation in handling, documenting, analyzing, treating, and returning the artifacts associated with the burials from two recent projects undertaken by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s department of Archaeology. It focuses on the practical protocols implemented for the collections during these projects and reflects on the value of conservation and curatorial analysis while balancing the need for discovery of information with respect. ***Images of human remains may be shown.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Individuals Known and Unknown: Case Studies from Two Burial Contexts at Colonial Williamsburg   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39228.0