All archaeological investigations, whether for cultural resources management (CRM) or academic research, result in the creation of a collection that the profession is ethically bound to preserve for future research, interpretation, and education. A collection may be both artifacts and associated records (e.g., field notes, photographs, and data) or just associated records when no artifacts are recovered. In either case, their care and long-term management require resources of time, money, and labor, which have not been broadly forthcoming since the significant influx of collections began in the United States with the ABSTRACTThe discipline of archaeology has been tolerating, at best, a "curation crisis" for decades that is unsustainable. The many issues related to long-term collections care continue to worsen. To counter this trend, we advocate that planning for collections be integrated into project administration from inception such that the management of archaeological collections begins before fieldwork and continues well after recovered collections reach the repository. To conceptualize this process, we identify the Collection Management Cycle as a framework for the many stakeholders involved in archaeological projects. We also provide a checklist that identifies the responsibilities stakeholders have to the collections they generate, fund, care for, manage, and/or study. Concerted use of the checklist and other proposed solutions will lead to a new era of a more sustainable archaeological practice. Durante décadas, la disciplina de la arqueología ha tolerado, en el mejor de los casos, una "crisis de curación" que es insostenible. Los muchos problemas relacionados con el cuidado a largo plazo de las colecciones continúan empeorando. Para contrarrestar esta tendencia, proponemos que la planificación de las colecciones sea integrada en la administración del proyecto desde el comienzo, de tal forma que el manejo de las colecciones arqueológicas comience antes del trabajo de campo y continúe después de que las colecciones recuperadas lleguen al depósito. Para conceptualizar este proceso, identificamos el ciclo de administración de la colección como un marco para los muchos depositarios involucrados en los proyectos arqueológicos. Además, proveemos una lista de verificación que identifica las responsabilidades de los depositarios respecto a las colecciones que generan, financian, cuidan, gestionan y estudian. El uso conjunto de la lista de verificación y otras soluciones propuestas conducirá a una nueva era de prácticas arqueológicas más sostenibles.enactment of state and federal historic preservation laws in the 1960s and 1970s. Inadequate, unsecure storage space, shortage of professional curatorial staff, poor accessibility to collections for research and other uses, and orphaned collections 1 are some of the many problems identified as part of the curation crisis besieging the United States (e.g.,
The recovery of anomalous (red-slipped, shell/grog/sandstone-tempered) pottery from three sites in the Upper Mississippi Valley (UMV) prompted a petrographic analysis of thin sections of 21 vessels from these sites. The goal was to evaluate their possible derivation from the American Bottom, the nearest locality where such pottery commonly occurs. Among the 12 UMV vessels tempered with shell (nine red slipped), ten were determined, based on comparisons to thin sections of stylistically similar pottery from the American Bottom, to have essentially identical physical compositions. Additionally, four vessels suspected of being limestone-tempered were determined to have been tempered with a type of sandstone that out-crops only farther south in Illinois and Iowa. Of the three UMV sites, only the Fisher Mounds Site Complex (FMSC) produced the presumed exotic pottery in undisturbed, dated contexts. The petrographic evidence is consistent with the C-14 age and lithic assemblage at FMSC in suggesting an actual influx of people from the American Bottom into the UMV. The time of this influx, the Edelhardt phase of the Emergent Mississippian/Terminal Late Woodland period, ca. cal A.D. 1000-1050, is earlier than previously believed, i.e., precedes the main Mississippian period in the American Bottom.
Archaeological investigations at the Trempealeau and Fisher Mounds Site Complexes in western Wisconsin have provided definitive evidence of settlements and platform mounds in a portion of the Upper Mississippi Valley dating to the early Cahokian era, immediately priorto A.D. 1050 and ending before A.D. 1100. The presence ofCahokian earthen constructions, wall-trench buildings, ceramics, and imported stone tools associated with likely religious buildings and a series of possible farmsteads 900 river km north of Cahokia points to a unique intrusive occupation. We suggest that Trempealeau was a religious installation located proximate to a powerful, storied landform on the Mississippi River that afforded Cahokians access to the animate forces of that region. Probably built by and for Cahokians with minimal involvement on the part of living local people, the timing of this occupation hints at its close relationship to the founding of the American Indian city to the south.
Collections care practices have become professionalized in the last 30 years, in large part because of the work of organizations such as the American Alliance of Museums, the Canadian Conservation Institute, the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, the American Institute for Conservation, and others in the museum sphere. Advances in preservation and management have benefited the discipline of archaeology in the field and laboratory. This thematic issue provides an updated perspective on the current happenings in the repository, highlighting innovative techniques and practices that collections specialists employ when managing the archaeological record. This article considers a macroview of the issues surrounding archaeological curation today and ponders what the future of collections preservation can and should look like.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.