Excavating Repositories: Academic Research Projects Using Archaeological Collections

A major problem in collections management is the lack of training about collections in all facets of archaeology. Ignorance about both ethical obligations and practical steps associated with collections is arguably the leading contributor to the ongoing curation crisis. This work summarizes shortcomings in collections training in academia and in cultural resource management, and it proceeds to identify some steps that can be taken to provide training for students and professional archaeologists. The overriding argument is that more training in all aspects of collections is absolutely essential to addressing and beginning to mitigate the overwhelming problems the discipline faces in caring for archaeological collections.

Section: Working Toward Solutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Lies My Teacher Told Me”

Warner,

Rivers Cofield

2023

“…Paola A. Schiappacasse (2019) offers her view from Puerto Rico, where she actively engages students in projects that include elements of both research and collections care. Schiappacasse explores the importance of university departments and museums working together, training students to use existing collections as they develop research questions.…”

Section: In This Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Contextual data is often lacking in the associated records (e.g., field forms, maps, or photos [King 2009; King and Samford 2019; Voss 2012]). Problems with the preservation of contextual data exist, in part, because few archaeologists are formally trained in the practices of creating a meaningful archive that effectively informs future researchers, especially archaeologists who reexamine existing repository collections (Bauer-Clapp and Kirakosian 2017; Merriman and Swain 1999; Vogt-O'Connor 1999; see also Schiappacasse 2019). Digital repositories such as the Digital Archaeological Record in the United States and the Archaeology Data Service in the United Kingdom provide archaeologists with a mechanism for ensuring that associated records in digital form are appropriately preserved, migrated, and cared for by trained digital curators and made available to a variety of stakeholders now and in the future.…”

Section: Specialization Data Management and Curationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Long View of Archaeological Collections Care, Preservation, and Management

Benden

Taft

2019

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.

“…Second, we want to offer tangible paths forward to address the systemic problems identified. Some of the present-day challenges to collections creation, deposit in a repository, care and management, accessibility, findability, collaboration, and disposition have been explicated in recent years (Archaeological Collections Consortium 2019; Benden and Taft 2019; Childs and Benden 2017; Childs and Warner 2019; King and Samford 2019; Neller 2019; Schiappacasse 2019; Teeter et al 2021). However, we want to look to the future to address challenges that are emerging with more urgency and offer avenues toward viable solutions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Collections-Based View of the Future of Archaeology

Domeischel,

Childs

2024

This theme issue has two primary goals: to illuminate the underdeveloped or faltering areas of the discipline as they relate to archaeological collections and to offer tangible paths forward to address the systemic problems identified as they impact the future of archaeology. Present-day archaeology is complicated due to its many sectors of practice: academia/faculty; cultural resource management; federal, state, and local government; tribal governments and communities; descendant communities; students; the general public; and different types of archaeological repositories. Given this complexity, it can be difficult to identify the expectations (and realities) of each sector, which, if better understood, would help illuminate the nuances of preservation, accountability, discoverability, and use of archaeological collections across the discipline. Without a solid understanding of these nuances, efforts to advance the discipline are undermined. This introduction provides an overview of the articles that address emerging and urgent issues and offer viable steps forward. These challenges include the interrelationships between ethics, collaboration, and training; the preservation and management of digital records and data; collections discovery and reuse; collections-based research; training in material culture; making collections knowable to constituencies outside archaeology; preparing for repatriation from a management perspective; and the intricacies of the archaeological digital data system.