TACLing the Curation Crisis: A Curation-Based Field School in Arkansas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The continued focus of many field schools on excavation without any emphasis or discussion of the associated long-term care of the resulting collections is one of many factors contributing to the current curation crisis. With little to no focus on the responsibilities and costs associated with long-term care of collections, we are doing a disservice to archaeology and the students who are being trained to prioritize excavation rather than considering analyses of existing collections as a credible scholarly option for academic work. This, combined with the lack of undergraduate coursework focusing on curatorial methods, inadequately prepares students for what is ultimately the largest responsibility of archaeology, to protect and maintain the artifacts and data for the future. This field school focused almost exclusively on curatorial methods, ethics, and hands on experience in collections rehabilitation and was, for many students, the first time that they had worked with artifacts or thought about the materials, space, and budgets necessary to maintain collections in perpetuity. By focusing on collections management, the students made the collections more accessible for future research and saw the need and potential for research in older, already extant collections.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51499