Collections and Curation – Society for Historical Archaeology

Mark Freeman — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 15:59:48 +0000

By Jennifer A. Lupu, PhD Candidate, Northwestern University

Perfume Bottle from the Halcyon House Collection with pull tag. This bottle was sent to Mark Warner and Ray Van Wandruszka at the University of Idaho for chemical remains testing.

Ok, so at long long last, I’ve returned to talk to you more about tips, strategies, and advice for doing graduate (or undergraduate) research with excavated collections. This post is mostly for PhD students, because it will discuss how to pitch a collections-based project to two major archaeology dissertation grants, the Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, and the National Science Foundation’s Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (NSF DDIG). Each of these provides up to $20,000 in research funding, which can include things like travel, equipment, samples analysis, and other field and analysis costs. There are many other resources about applying to these grants, but none that I had found was specific to collections. This blog post will focus on how to pitch a collections�?based archaeological project to NSF and Wenner-Gren. First, I’ll explain why students with collections-based projects should apply for these grants. Then, I’ll discuss how to structure your proposal. I’ll focus in on methodology and budget, because these are distinctive for collections-based projects and crucial to securing funding. Now, I’ll be totally honest here. I have had mixed success in applying for grants, but ultimately I did not get a major dissertation grant for my project. I agreed to write this blog series, about doing collections-based research as a student, while I was still waiting to hear the results of my proposals. As I went through the process of applying to these two grants, I did receive extremely positive reviews and made it to the second round of the Wenner-Gren twice. I learned so much along the way, and I want to share that advice with other graduate students. But of course, this is just a reflection of my own experience and conversations with peers and mentors, so take it with a grain of salt. BUT, if you, like me, are unsuccessful at getting these big sources of funding, do not despair! In my third and final post, I will talk about how to fund a collections�?based project without big grants. I’m fortunate to have been successful at receiiving some funding from other sources, and I’ll be discussing the lesser-known funding opportunities for collections-based research specifically in my third and final post of this series.

Why Should I apply at all?

Before I applied, I heard a lot of discouraging things about applying to grants with a collections�?based project, including that there’s no point in applying at all. I think it’s still important to apply, but I did find that some reviewers were dubious about a collections�?based project. However, I found at least one fully collections-based NSF DDIG that was funded, and both NSF and Wenner-Gren claim they are open to collections-based research. My Wenner-Gren proposal received favorable reviews both times I applied, and made it through to the second round of consideration. The first time I applied, however, I got the comment that a post-excavation project should not be as expensive as an excavation-based project, and this was one reason my proposal was not accepted. This is a commonly held myth that you will have to confront if you apply with a collections-based project. In actuality, many archaeological projects face major funding issues because they do not budget sufficiently for artifact processing, analysis, and conservation. This is part of what has led to an extreme burden of under-studied collections. Every graduate student should attempt to come up with a dream project that uses the full grant amount effectively. Whether it is a field project or a collections-based project, that money can be well-spent on costs that will forward anthropological and archaeological research. Collections-based research requires its own set of expertise and skills, and it is important that key archaeological funding sources support graduate students in getting the training they need to be collections�?specialists in their careers.

How to Frame your Proposal:

Basically, you should pitch this project much the way you’d pitch a more traditional excavation-based field project. Voss points out that in both collections- and excavation-based projects, knowledge is produced through the encounter between archaeologist and artifact in much the same way (2012). As I explained in blog post 1 of this series (here- add link), collections-based research is important, ethical, and environmentally sustainable. We need more students to be trained in collections-based approaches. BUT, in order to effectively work with excavated collections, you ideally should have experience on excavations and understand the excavation process. In addition to several seasons on a field school project, I spend a few years working as a CRM archaeologist in the Mid-Atlantic. When I began working with excavated collections, I needed to use my knowledge of excavation to understand the field notes, profile drawings, and descriptions of proveniences in order to understand the context of the artifacts. I scheduled a meeting with one of the archaeologists who had originally worked on the Halcyon House excavation in the 1980s, Dr. Elizabeth Crowell, and asked her questions about the excavation and clarified any uncertainties with site forms and documentation.

I tailored my project to NSF and Wenner-Gren in different ways. For NSF, it can be helpful to draw on Kintigh et al’s article “Grand Challenges for Archaeolgy.�?(//www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-antiquity/article/abs/grand-challenges-for-archaeology/D1CE7CB50C3C5A1854B5A48D71B17AD9). I tried to use more classic anthropology theory, such as Binford and Flannery’s discussions of settlement analysis, theoretical framings of “the household�?as a unit of analysis, and practice theory. I constructed hypotheses that could be proven or invalidated by the data. One way to do this is to propose to look at multiple collections together, and create hypotheses about how the material record might vary across a city or region, or over time. I proposed to build on my preliminary research with the Halcyon House Collection by looking at glass bottle artifacts in multiple collections across the city during the same time period. I propsed to use the Halcyon Collection as a key case study in a larger project that drew in comparative collections. In my grant applications, I emphasized that the collections I planned to study were “archaeologically excavated and stored with associated maps, stratigraphic profiles, slide photographs, and excavation field notes,�?or were written up in technical reports. I detailed how I planned to use these materials in my methodology, and my criteria for selecting comparative collections. I also argued for the importance of collections-based research and cited scholarship by collections-based researchers to justify my methods. My reviewers, for the most part, seemed to support this argument and during my second attempt, 2 out of 3 of my second round Wenner-Gren reviewers stated that my use of collections was a reason in favor of funding my project.

In pitching a project, the most important aspect is the types of questions it seeks to address, the tie to existing anthropological literatures, innovation, and feasibility. At the end of the day, there’s a mixture of luck and chance involved in who your reviewers are and what they deem to be important to study. Although I made it close and received some positive reviews, the short comings reviewers stated often had more to do with the questions I was asking and whether they could be answered by the data I offered.

Methodology and Budget:

Your methodology section and budget are extremely significant in a collections-based proposal, because one of your key innovations is in pitching and justifying a collections-based approach. Your methodology section should discuss the collection(s) you plan to study, how you have selected these or how you plan to do so, and your methods of analysis. One approach is to go in with a pre-selected collection and justify that further archaeological analysis of these materials will lead to new insights. Another approach is to take a set of collections (ie, all collections at one repository, collections of a particular time period or type across repositories, etc), and create a sampling strategy. One of the proposals I looked at used a nested sampling strategy, which I employed as well. This involves first looking at a large number of collections, and providing criteria for how you will choose which to analyze further. For example, first, you might create a spreadsheet of all the collections available, then explain criteria for choosing 20 collections to revisit, and explain criteria for narrowing this to 5 collections to further investigate for some type of chemical or materials analysis. In particular, I found Anna Agbe-Davies�?article about analyzing tobacco pipes across multiple sites to be a useful source in constructing a methodological approach. The key to the methodology section is in its connectedness to the rest of the proposal. Your proposed methodology should allow you to investigate your research questions or be able to prove OR disprove your hypotheses. In addition, the costs you propose in your budget should be explained and justified in your methodology section. My project was based in the US and I was living in the city where the collection was located. I used my university stipend to cover my cost of living expenses. However, if your project involves travel to access the collections, this is a great budget item to include. Granters are used to funding these costs because they are also required for excavation-based projects. Especially with a collections-based project, the items in your budget should be discussed in your methodology and should correspond clearly to your research questions.

After receiving feedback from my first submission attempt to Wenner-Gren, it was clear that my budget was a key issue in my proposal. In revising my proposal, I approached critiques of collections-research funding by putting direct and clear costs in my budget. In the first iteration, I had asked for funding to pay undergraduate research assistants to help digitize original records and assist with a massive cataloguing project. This seemed reasonable because many lab projects require multiple hands. While research assistants are allowed, both NSF and Wenner-Gren critiqued my budget for having too large a percentage go to these RAs. The second time I applied to Wenner Gren, I chose to include more direct cost budget items. For example, the collection I was working with has unprocessed soil samples with detailed provenience information. Because my project involved questions about purchased pharmaceuticals versus home-grown homeopathics, and because I had documentary evidence suggesting medicinal botanicals were grown on site, I included funding to work with an archaeobotanist specializing in my region to process the bags of soil and identify macro and microbotanical remains. My collection included many small metal items, some of which had been conserved in the 1980s and were identified as corset clips and lingerie materials associated with the likely Prohibition-era queer scene at the site (see my first post about the Halcyon House Collection for more information). Many other items in the collection were not yet conserved or were more rusted, so I also included costs to x-ray a sample of corroded metal objects in the collection and to conserve those deemed important. I added to my budget that I was saving on costs by assisting with the analysis and that I was getting training in the process. The MAC Lab at Jefferson Patterson Park regularly offers x-ray workshops and has put out a guide here (//jefpat.maryland.gov/AnalyticsReports/MAC%20Lab%20Guide%20to%20X-Radiography.pdf) by Sara Rivers-Cofield and Nichole Doub. With these types of direct costs in my budget, I got more favorable responses from my reviewers. Not only do these analyses help the dissertating student’s project, but the records and reports will be included with the collection to allow for future research as well.

The Key Takeaways

Ultimately, every graduate student should prepare to do a dream project should they be awarded funding, and a more restrained project if they do not get funding. I recommend shooting your shot �?go for the big grants and put your best foot forward. Best case scenario �?you win a grant, get funding to do all the analysis you want, and get a CV line that will propel you to the top of job application pools. I strongly believe that collections-based research is an important part of the future of archaeology, and I want other graduate students to successfully obtain funding to explore new methods and approaches to these materials. Unstudied and under-studied collections, containing significant and irreplicable data, currently line shelves of repositories across the country. While often undervalued, collections-based research requires its own set of skills and experience, developed over time. I believe it is important to fund the next generation of scholars in developing collections-based approaches and new methodologies for analyzing this valuable data source. And if you apply and don’t get the grants? You’ll still learn a ton, refine your dissertation project, read new literature, and have a solid start to several chapters of your dissertation. You will find a way to complete a research project and write a dissertation, and maybe later on you’ll land an awesome post-doc or job that will fund your dream project. Keep these dream project goals in mind, and you’ll be that much more prepared to propose a post-doc project that expands upon your dissertation. As I said in my first post �?one of the benefits of a collections-based project is that it’s very much possible to scale up or down. If you are unsuccessful at getting outside grants, don’t worry. It is possible to write a collections-based dissertation with minimal funding. In my next blog post, I’ll write about the particular sources of funding you can apply for with a collections-based project and how to fund your research without big grants. After all, that’s what I’ve done, and it led to me to unexpected opportunities!

Left: Previously conserved corset clip with inscribed brand name; Right: Rusted corset clip, unidentifiable, with traces of fabric remaining (Both from the Halcyon House Collection).

Key Sources:

Agbe-Davies, Anna S. 2006.
“Alternatives to Traditional Models for the Classification and Analysis of Pipes of the Early Colonial Chesapeake.�?In Between Dirt and Discussion: Methods, Methodology, and Interpretation in Historical Archaeology, edited by Steven N. Archer and Kevin M. Bartoy, 115�?0. Boston, MA: Springer US.

Childs, S. Terry, and Mark S. Warner. 2020.
Using and Curating Archaeological Collections. The SAA Press.

Childs, S. Terry, and Danielle M. Benden. 2017.
“A Checklist for Sustainable Management of Archaeological Collections.�?Advances in Archaeological Practice 5 (1): 12�?5.

Flannery, Kent V. 1976.
The Early Mesoamerican Village. Studies in Archeology (Academic Press). New York: Academic Press.

Kintigh, K. W., Altschul, J. H., Beaudry, M. C., Drennan, R. D., Kinzig, A. P., Kohler, T. A., Limp, W. F., Maschner, H. D., Michener, W. K., Pauketat, T. R., Peregrine, P., Sabloff, J. A., Wilkinson, T. J., Wright, H. T., & Zeder, M. A. (2014).
Grand challenges for archaeology. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(3), 879�?80. //doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1324000111

MacFarland, Kathryn, and Arthur W. Vokes. 2016.
“Dusting Off the Data: Curating and Rehabilitating Archaeological Legacy and Orphaned Collections.�?Advances in Archaeological Practice 4 (2): 161�?5.

Voss, Barbara L. 2012.
“Curation as Research. A Case Study in Orphaned and Underreported Archaeological Collections.�?Archaeological Dialogues 19 (2): 145�?9.

Watkins, Rachel, and Jennifer Muller. 2015.
“Repositioning the Cobb Human Archive: The Merger of a Skeletal Collection and Its Texts.�?American Journal of Human Biology 27 (1): 41�?0. //doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.22650.

The post Working with the Halcyon Collection 2: Applying for Major Dissertation Grants with a Collections�?Project appeared first on Society for Historical Archaeology.

Collections and Curation – Society for Historical Archaeology

William White — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 15:36:30 +0000

Well hello there, fellow archaeology grad student or other interested reader! In this three-part blog series, I will be providing practical advice for using archaeological collections for your PhD dissertation, MA Thesis, or other graduate student work. This is based on my personal experience, the experiences of colleagues, and collective advice I’ve gathered from mentors. In part 1, I’ll be introducing myself and my project, and giving an overview of how to create a project that uses archaeological collections. Part 2 of the series will focus on how to present and advocate for a collections-based project in a proposal or grant application. Part 3 will be about finding funding for your collections-based project.

Figure 1 Me, Jenn Lupu, excited for another day of research with collections! All photos personal.

The story of my project

My name is Jenn Lupu, I’m a PhD Candidate at Northwestern University, and I do historical archaeology. Before attending graduate school, I worked as a field and lab technician for various CRM (Cultural Resources Management) firms. I grew up in the Washington, DC area, and after college, I returned to the area for my first CRM job. Although I worked all over the mid-Atlantic, I was especially fascinated by cities and the history of urban experiences. I wrote an MA thesis on brothels in 1880s Washington, using archaeological reports and census data to analyze the spatial dynamics of brothels within the urban landscape (Lupu 2020). I knew I wanted to pursue work on Washington, DC for my PhD dissertation, but I was seeking a topic.

Luckily for me, I happened to be introduced to Dr. Ruth Trocolli, the District Archaeologist for Washington, DC. I met with her to talk about the possibility of doing a new excavation in Washington, and while she was open to it, she also showed me some previous collections, and highlighted one in particular. Halcyon House is a large mansion in the Georgetown neighborhood of DC. One of the earliest structures in the developing city, Halcyon House is a National Register Historic Landmark. In 1985, the owner of Halcyon agreed to hire an archaeological firm to excavate the site before he undertook an extensive construction project. The firm found many more artifacts than were expected, including a few Native American lithics, household trash deposits ranging from 1800-1930, and extensive glass bottle dumps. Funding disputes arose between the archaeologists and landowner, resulting in lawsuits. The project was never completed, and the artifacts and associated records were boxed and stored in the developer’s basement. In 2011, a volunteer for the District Archaeologist learned that the collection was about to be thrown away. Dr. Trocolli and the volunteer picked up the boxes, not knowing what was in the collection. They had time to quickly replace the boxes with archival ones but did not have time or sufficient labor power to fully inventory or catalogue the collection. What was known about the collection was a rumor �?that in the early 20^th century, a man named Albert Adsit Clemons was described in newspapers as “eccentric�?and was said to have lived alone with a male carpenter. Newspaper articles from around the time of his death indicated that he was a strange character, who, with the help of the carpenter, built wild and strange additions to the house, including stairways that led nowhere, doors that opened onto walls, and a secret theater with a door designed to look like window shades. Was this a part of queer history? Could the artifacts or documents yield any insights into the relationship between Albert and the carpenter? Stay tuned for the answers to these questions and more�?

Figure 2: rehousing bottles from the Halcyon Collection

Why work with archaeological collections?

The story of the Halcyon House collection may seem unusual, but in many ways it’s common. Archaeological repositories are bursting with collections that are unstudied or understudied. If you’re hooked and waiting to learn more about Halcyon’s mysteries, a collections-based project may be a great choice for you. For ethical, practical, and intellectual reasons, collections-based projects make great dissertations. For decades, archaeologists and other scholars have called attention to what has been called the “collections crisis,�?whereby an over-emphasis on funding excavation, with an under-emphasis on funding long-term collections storage has resulted in a burden of unstudied, understudied, and deteriorating archaeological collections (Childs and Warner 2019; MacFarland and Vokes 2016; Voss 2012). Further, many archaeologists have asserted that conducting collections-based research is essential for an ethical archaeological practice (i.e. Childs and Benden 2017; Lynott 2017; Scarre and Scarre 2006; Zimmerman et al 2003). As Voss points out, timing is crucial, because there is a risk of data loss and damage the longer collections remain unstudied (2012, 146). By taking on an understudied collection, graduate students can help to remedy this burden and assist repositories with managing their collections. You might be tempted, at this point, but I bet you have one big concern left �?Will a collections-based project allow me to get a job in archaeology? Will I be able to get dissertation funding? I have been told multiple times that excavating is an essential part of an archaeology dissertation and proves your skills in the field, which is necessary for getting jobs and grants. There’s definitely some truth to this. However, collections-based research has its own benefits. I ultimately chose a collections project in part because during my first year of grad school I had spine surgery and was worried my body would be unable to excavate later on. However, the choice has paid off many times over. As it turns out, if you pitch a collections-based project well, you can still get funding for your project (more on this in parts 2 and 3). In addition, collections work prepares graduate students for numerous academic-adjacent and alt-academia positions (that is, a job that uses academic qualifications or skills but is outside the university setting). These jobs can include positions at museums, CRM firms, historic sites, libraries, and repositories, which are often looking to hire archaeologists with collections experience. All of these positions in addition to traditional academic jobs. Many universities have archaeology museums or collections, and sometimes hire a collections specialist or seek out a professor who can simultaneously oversee the collections. Having collections experience helps to qualify you for these types of positions. In addition to the many collections positions outside academia, doing this research doesn’t disqualify you from academic jobs. Quite the opposite. Collections work can enable graduate students to start publishing earlier and develop valuable skills and expertise. In these uncertain times, a collections-based project can allow graduate students to finish quickly and avoid delays due to unforeseen crises. When I was first applying to graduate school, a professor told me she recommended her students seek out collections projects, because they were more likely to be able to finish in 5 or 6 years. I was able to find and choose a dissertation collection during the summer after my first year of my PhD and continued working with it each summer until I moved to be close to the repository for my fieldwork year. For students with limited time in the field, collections can allow for a project where data collection mostly occurs over the summer. Or, some repositories will allow you to borrow materials to study at your home university’s lab. I had chosen the project in part because I wanted to ensure my health issues didn’t prevent me from finishing on time. When COVID-19 struck, I was again reminded of the resilience of collections research. I had already collected a decent amount of data and I had photographs and scanned paperwork I could access from home. I was able to work with the DC Historic Preservation Office to create a plan for a fully contactless approach to the remainder of my project. While you may be advised that working with collections for your dissertation will limit your choices afterwards, I have found the opposite to be true. The field is coming around to seeing the value of collection research, and it enables new methodologies and research questions. In addition to being ethical, doing collections work will allow you to complete a dissertation on time, even in the face of unforeseen delays or obstacles. While certain jobs may turn away a collections researcher, having skills with collections opens up a plethora of other opportunities, both inside academia and in other sectors.

Figure 3 Boxes of Halcyon Collection artifacts, atop filing cabinets at the DC Historic Preservation office.

How to come up with a topic and find data

Ok, so by now you may be fully on board and excited, but perhaps you’re wondering how to go about it. Finding a collection to work with for your dissertation will probably be easier than you expect. You may find that repositories are eager to find researchers who want to catalogue their data. After all, in addition to providing you with a dissertation, your work with the collection will help the repository manage its materials, a mutually beneficial relationship. With the help of the Archaeological Collections Consortium, the Collections and Curations Committee of the SHA has been working to create a database of archaeological repositories. This resource allows you to search by location to find repositories that house archaeological collections within the US. In some cases, the map provides contact information as well. This can be a good place to start searching and developing local contacts. You can access the 2017 version of the repository guide here. Stay tuned for an updated version that is in development now.

//sha-gis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=9025c4f06b594d089f8a6cb5d5676ac5

Contact Repositories, and/or Museums, State Historic Preservation Offices, and city Historic Preservation Offices in your area or your research site. If you are unsure of the repositories in the area check the repository link above. In talking to them, you can learn more about what they might have to offer. Another benefit of collections-based work is that you can seek out collections that relate to your research interests. While many collections and artifacts can yield valuable insights about the past, it can benefit graduate student to try to work with a collection where archaeological records are intact and provenience information can be gleaned. While it is possible to do amazing analysis with unprovenienced collections, having some ‘traditional�?archaeological methods discussion (such as interpreting stratigraphy etc.) can prove your knowledge in the science and practice of archaeology. Beyond being ethical and practical, working with collections allows for new types of archaeological projects and exciting topics. Archaeologists have advocated for broad, synthetic projects that seek to draw together data beyond a single site (i.e. Kintigh et al 2014). Working with previously excavated collections enables synthetic work at a greater scale, through drawing together a range of previously excavated sites. In addition, collections-based research inspires new methodologies and approaches, such as inductive methodologies stemming from individual artifacts or groups of artifacts (Voss 2012, 157). Working with a previously excavated collection, especially one with some associated documentation, can allow a graduate student researcher to choose a dissertation topic that more closely fits with their theoretical and material specialties. For example, I chose to work with the Halcyon House collection because I knew at the outset that it had one of the largest collections of glass bottle artifacts found in DC (I enjoy and specialize in working with bottle glass), and it had definite ties to questions around sexuality and gender (theoretical research interests of mine). While an excavation project may be selected around these interests as well, it is more difficult to ensure you will find the specific types of data you are seeking for your project. By working with archaeological artifacts in new ways, collections-based research benefits the field of archaeology and allows for different types of research questions.

Conclusion

As I started going through and inventorying the boxes in the Halcyon House collection, the findings were beyond my expectations. Albert and the carpenter had lived during a time when there was regular trash collection, but they chose to bury several deposits of trash under a patio in the back yard. The items stylistically matched Albert’s taste in the post-death inventory of his house, with brightly colored lamp glass and imported East-Asian porcelains. But the trash deposit also included numerous fasteners for corsets, garters, stockings, and other items from lingerie marketed exclusively to women, along with traces of “theater makeup�?and dozens of alcohol and food extract bottles. Collectively, together with the documents, these materials support the hypothesis that there was an underground drag scene at Halcyon during Prohibition. That’s not all! I’ve continued to uncover Halcyon’s colorful and strange history and have broadened my project to look at glass bottles from multiple collections to put Halcyon into the context of the city. I’ve done public education programs and found that people were very excited by the materials in the collection and how we can use them to learn about the past. By the end of my data collection, I will have much more than enough for a dissertation �?the Halcyon materials and the city-scale combined are providing me with nearly a career’s worth of data to analyze. Even with the unexpected setbacks of the COVID pandemic, I will still be able to collect enough data for my dissertation, keeping to my originally proposed timeline. Plus, as you will hear in parts two and three, I have been able to obtain research funding to support my project. While I was warned choosing a collection might be a risk, in the end it has paid off many times over.

Works Cited:

Childs, S. Terry, and Danielle M. Benden. 2017. “A Checklist for Sustainable Management of Archaeological Collections.�?Advances in Archaeological Practice 5 (1): 12�?5.

Childs, S. Terry, and Mark S. Warner. 2019. Using and Curating Archaeological Collections. SAA: Washington, DC.

Kintigh, K.W., J.H. Altschul, M.C. Beaudry, R.D. Drennan, A.P. Kinzig, T.A. Kohler, W.F. Limp, H.D. G. Maschner, W.K. Michener, T.R. Pauketat, P. Peregrine, J.A. Sabloff, T.J. Wilkinson, H.T. Wright, and M.A. Zeder. 2014. Grand Challenges for Archaeology. American Antiquity, 79(1): 5-24.

Lupu, Jennifer A. 2020. “Landscapes of Power and De- sire: A Geographical Analysis of Washington, D.C.’s Nineteenth-Century Brothel District.�?In Historical Sex Work: New Contributions from History and Archaeol- ogy, edited by Kristen Fellows, Angela Smith, and Anna Munns, 27�?0. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

Lynott, Mark J. 1997. “Ethical Principles and Archaeological Practice: Development of an Ethics Policy.�?American Antiquity 62 (4): 589�?9. //doi.org/10.2307/281879 .

MacFarland, Kathryn, and Arthur W. Vokes. 2016. “Dusting Off the Data: Curating and Rehabilitating Archaeological Legacy and Orphaned Collections.�?Advances in Archaeological Practice, 4 (2): 161�?5

Scarre, Chris, and Geoffrey Scarre. 2006. The Ethics of Archaeology: Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice. Cambridge University Press.

Voss, Barbara L. 2012. “Curation as Research. A Case Study in Orphaned and Underreported Archaeological Collections.�?Archaeological Dialogues, 19 (2): 145�?9.

Zimmerman, Larry J., Karen D. Vitelli, and Julia J. Hollowell, editors. 2003. Ethical Issues in Archaeology. Rowman Altamira.

The post Working with the Halcyon Collection, Part 1 appeared first on Society for Historical Archaeology.

Collections and Curation – Society for Historical Archaeology

Mon, 16 Mar 2015 22:37:53 +0000

The following post was previously published in the SHA newsletter as the introductory piece of a new series intended to identify professionals with expertise in particular classes of material culture who can assist others with artifacts in their collections. In light of the SHA’s recent polling of the membership’s comments on the 36CFR79 consultation process, and our Society’s response to the consultation, the issues surrounding collections stewardship and de-accessioning remain very much alive, especially in the domain of collections expertise. The Collections and Curation Committee have been sponsoring a series of blogs and newsletter items on members who communicate their specialist interest to the membership in the interest of sharing knowledge and expertise, which essential to good collections management practice. These posts, titled “My Artifact Obsession�? relate to material classes of artifacts such as metals and ceramics, but also to sources of information for collections assessment. New posts sponsored by the Committee will be released in tandem with publication in the newsletter. If you are interested in or have questions regarding the “My Artifact Obsession�?project, please contact Committee member Sara Rivers-Cofield at sara.rivers-cofield@maryland.gov. If you are sponsoring or participating in projects incorporating collections-based components similar to “My Artifact Obsession,�?the Committee would welcome your suggestions and recommendations for future blog posts. Please contact Sarah Platt at seplatt@syr.edu. This piece was originally published in the spring 2014 edition of the SHA Newsletter.

Introducing a new newsletter feature: My Artifact Obsession

Historical Archaeologists have finally reached a widespread consensus about professional curation standards and storage conditions. Not everyone is in accord, but for the most part we have learned the error of our brown-paper-bag ways and moved into an archivally enlightened era of polyethylene bags and acid-free everything. We have even adopted preventive conservation techniques and treatment strategies to keep our collections intact forever and ever, amen. But our work is never finished, and frankly, how we store things is the easy part. Something even scarier, harder to enforce, and yes, even more expensive than proper packaging still looms over the curation crisis. We still, as a profession, have not reached agreement about what is and is not actually worth retaining in those archivally stable time capsules we create. There is no centralized resource offering guidance on archaeological collection strategies. Yes, each site is unique and therefore the decision of what to keep should be made on a case-by-case basis, but in practice that leaves the decisions to individual lab employees, repositories, and local regulatory agencies, none of whom are likely to be experts on the value of every artifact type for long-term research. Some might document and discard without much thought, while others could decide to keep it all just in case that fantastical creature, the future researcher, will need it. Neither scenario is desirable. Ideally you’d have people who really know their brick, shell, and glass make those decisions for that specific collection, resulting in collections with a Goldilocks retention scenario that is juuuust right; no future deaccessioning required. Our default setting should be “think carefully and ask around,�?but we need to know who to ask. Who decides how much brick is enough? Which shells to keep? How much window glass should be stored? Unfortunately, there is no directory of artifact specialists we can turn to when we have a site full of little pieces of something we know nothing about. Most of us have a network—someone we call about gun parts, and someone else we e-mail with a mystery ceramic�?but most personal networks have gaps. If there was a curator genie willing to grant me three wishes, I would wish for archaeological yellow pages where I could just look up “brick�?or “nails�?and there would be a name and number to call for trustworthy advice on how to deal with all of that messy architectural stuff. My second wish would be to ensure that all advisors in my new artifact yellow pages would provide their expertise for free. Finally, I would wish that all metals would stop corroding immediately because I love them. More on that later. Since there is no curator genie, the only way to make my wishes come true�?well, 2 out of 3 anyway�?is to lead an effort within SHA�?Collections and Curation Committee to build these proverbial yellow pages. The idea emerged at the 2012 SHA meetings in Baltimore as I listened to frustrated colleagues share accounts of closed repositories, whole discarded collections, and lack of guidance on the dreaded D-words—deaccessioning and discard. I thought that if SHA as an organization could get these distressed archaeologists in touch with colleagues who have specific material culture knowledge, it would create a valuable resource for professional consultation on questions of artifact significance. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a small e-mail distribution list for the brick-inclined, the bead people, the button lovers, and so on? Since then this has become one of the goals of the SHA’s Collections and Curation Committee. Members had already been developing a toolkit to evaluate archaeological collections in terms of significance, potential contributions to knowledge, and worthiness of prime real estate in storage. The toolkit is a thinking exercise that has value even if no action is taken, because awareness of what has already been collected is essential for determining what to collect in future. Still, the assessment tool is of limited value if the people using it lack a strong network of material culture specialists who can help identify the collection’s artifacts and their value for interpretation. The bottom line is that we need these specialists to speak up and identify themselves.

In an effort to bring our artifact enthusiasts out to play, we offer you the newsletter series, My Artifact Obsession. This will be a venue for artifact addicts to explain to readers why their particular beloved category of material culture is so important. In return for granting the artifact-obsessed this space to wax poetical or straight up lecture colleagues about their fixation, each author must be willing to join our network of specialists, receive inquiries, and offer advice to fellow professionals about their favorite artifact category. We don’t yet know what the product of this effort will look like because we need to build the network before we can figure out how to make it accessible. For now we just want e-mail addresses for people willing to help colleagues with one or more of the following:

Artifact ID/Dating
Appropriate research questions
Appropriate sampling strategies
Pre-discard documentation needs
Books/sources on the topic

This may seem like a lot to tackle�?after all, loving artifacts shouldn’t be punishable by unwanted inbox clutter�?but ideally we are looking for the artifact-obsessives of the discipline who like getting e-mails about their favorite finds. For example, I will offer myself up first in the following treatise on the importance of metals. Specialties can be more specific though; like looking at oyster shell instead of all shell�?that is up to each volunteer. Furthermore, we are NOT asking specialists to offer cataloging advice to untrained lab staff, or provide IDs for the public’s garden/beach/metal detecting finds. The goal is to introduce the SHA membership to material culture specialists through the My Artifact Obsession series, and assemble groups of such specialists to assist professionals with specific collections-based inquiries.

If you’d like to share your artifact obsession, join the expertise network we are forming, and potentially influence curation policies that affect your data pool, e-mail me at sara.rivers-cofield@maryland.gov

My Artifact Obsession: Colonial Metals

A few years ago one of my co-workers bought me a magnet for Christmas that reads “Easily Distracted by Shiny Objects.�?It is true. I am. But in my defense, I also get excited about a nice matte green patina and even rusty iron. I am into pretty much all of the “Little Metal Things�?recovered on colonial sites. I revel in the feeling of turning a formerly unidentified metal object (UMO) into an innovative contribution to site interpretation, and I’m getting pretty good at the 17^th and 18^th century IDs. The industrially-produced 19^th and 20^th-century stuff mostly stumps me, but still, I hold out hope that someday I’ll see that UMO in a new context and its identity will be revealed.

But that can only happen if the metal is still there to be identified, and thanks to its tendency to corrode, survival is not a given. I don’t worry too much about the little copper and white metal doodads that feed my obsession; these tend to be stable, and even small unidentifiable blobs of copper and lead are usually awarded “small finds�?status. But I do worry about what the archaeological world at large is doing about my beleaguered rusty iron. I hope it’s just a rumor, but I have heard of repositories that simply don’t accept iron artifacts because they are heavy and take up space and they’ll just turn to powder anyway; as if the value of an artifact for understanding cultural heritage is somehow tied to its ability to obediently await future researchers without decaying. If that kind of thinking is feeding our discipline’s sampling strategies, then I can’t help but speak out in defense of iron. Yes, it is expensive to conserve iron artifacts, but there are ways to set priorities and limit costs. For example, it’s not terribly expensive to document and identify iron objects with x-rays. I can hear the protests now though: “Who has access to x-ray? I suppose I could try to find one, but that would be pretty difficult. Building conservation and x-ray funds into a scope of work could break the budget and it’s a hard sell to clients. Really, how do you justify the expense of special analysis or treatment for a bunch of rust balls that look like a collection of fossilized poo? It’s just too hard, too expensive, and a silly waste of resources.�? My response to such arguments is this: No! This is so wrong! You know what else can look like fossilized poo? Colonoware. I don’t see anyone saying that’s not important enough to care about. And you know what else some clients think is too hard, too expensive, and a silly waste of resources? ARCHAEOLOGY. Every last bit of it.

If we think it’s worth it to spend time and money conducting careful excavations and processing artifacts for long-term curation, then we have to be careful about dismissing any class of artifact without getting as much information out of it as we can. Privileging one artifact class over another because of the expense of conservation or analysis undermines the arguments we use when justifying doing archaeology at all. The whole endeavor is supposed to be about collecting information. Wilfully letting a portion of the information corrode into oblivion without using existing tools to properly document them undermines our credibility. The burial environment already robs us of so many organic and other unstable materials, how can we justify neglecting a whole segment of finds we actually do recover? Imagine saying, “I know a Phase III on that huge 18^th-century plantation might reveal a lot about our cultural heritage, but it that would be too expensive. Let’s do a Phase III on the tiny lithic scatter nearby instead and let the plantation get destroyed.�?That’s the same kind of argument as limiting curatorial investment to stable artifacts.

Now I am not so obliviously ensconced in the state-of-the art (ca. 1998) Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory that I don’t recognize the financial challenge that iron preservation and analysis presents. I might have an x-ray machine down the hall, but I know most folks don’t. What I don’t quite understand is why everyone doing historical archaeology wouldn’t make that equipment a priority. Total station? Yes. Ground penetrating radar? Yes. X-ray? Apparently not. I just don’t get that. X-ray is our friend. It magically zaps through all that poo-looking corrosion to show the true artifact inside. Let’s take nails as a case in point. I may love little metal things, but even I find nails boring, and frankly, I don’t see much use in keeping them at all when they go untreated. They just take up space and fall apart. They are, however, highly diagnostic when you can tell if they are wrought, cut, wire, T-head, L-Head, etc. X-rays allow you to see that; they turn unidentified corroded nails into measurable and diagnostic architectural data. Catalogs with nail counts can be dramatically different when all nails are identifiable, and site interpretations more accurate as a result. Furthermore, if you x-ray a box of nails for $350 and discard them instead of paying the $350 box fee to store them, then I say you’re doing the curation crisis a solid.

Scissors discovered in a bag of unidentified iron from a 17th-19th century site aboard the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland (Naval District Washington). X-ray showed that the crusted object with brick adhered to corrosion was in fact a very fancy pair of embroidery scissors. Since the x-ray is to scale, an outline can be made of the scissors even though they have deteriorated.

Yes, it is expensive to own and maintain x-ray machines and certified staff to use them, but isn’t it worth it to dramatically improve the interpretation of historic sites? Don’t we want accurate catalogs? Don’t we want to document our finds before they turn into powder? Don’t we want to identify that amazing never-before-seen iron artifact that changes everything we know about the site so we can conserve it instead of ignoring it? Yes people. We want it. We just have yet to make it a discipline-wide priority. I submit that we can be smarter about this. We can recognize that iron is a fact of life on historic sites and plan accordingly for some treatment, a whole lot of documentation, and informed discard. It makes a lot more sense than accepting inaccurate catalogs and long-term storage of corrosion powder as standard practice. Not everyone has to love on the metals like I do, but pretty please let us at least send this message to all of our ferrous utensils, tools, farm equipment, architectural hardware, transportation hardware, cooking vessels, clothing fasteners, stoves, and miscellany: we care about you. We understand the importance of peering through your crusty exterior to the meaningful object inside. We know it’s not your fault you’re unstable, and we don’t think that the thousands of shards of indistinct redware we collect are somehow more important than you just because they don’t fall apart in the bag. Even if you are dying and we can’t afford drastic measures, we at least think you should be x-rayed for posterity. And if you are a UMO, you should be preserved for a researcher who might someday discover what you are.

In the hope that you readers will take this “love your metals�?pledge, I offer my services in helping you identify them if I can. Colonial metals in particular are my favorite and bring joy to my inbox. If you, too, love metals, let’s make a club and have a distribution list! Send me your interest and your UMOs, and all of our reports may be enriched. sara.rivers-cofield@maryland.gov PS- Don’t show me your nails. Even my love of iron has limits.

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Collections and Curation – Society for Historical Archaeology

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 15:50:55 +0000

By Giovanna Vitelli

Chair, SHA Collections and Curation Committee The subject of deaccession, or the permanent removal of an object from a museum or historical collection, has long been of concern to historical archaeologists. The SHA has highlighted the issue in recent years and has held workshops and conference sessions on the subject in an effort to bring the topic into the mainstream. We now draw your attention to a proposed amendment to Federal regulations on curation, and are soliciting your comments.

In the United States, regulations known as the “Curation of Federally Owned and Administered Archaeological Collections,�?or 36 CFR Part 79, were issued in 1990 to address the responsibilities of Federal agencies and others holding Federal collections to archaeological collections in their custody. These regulations did not address the deaccession of archaeological materials, an issue that the Department of the Interior (DOI) is now proposing to remedy through an amendment to 36 CFR Part 79. The proposed amendment will “establish definitions, standards, and procedures to dispose of particular material remains that are determined to be of insufficient archaeological interest.�?The proposed amendment (or rule) is expected to “promote more efficient and effective curation of these archeological collections.�?/p>

The proposed amendment has been published in the Federal Register (you can access that notice at //www.nps.gov/archeology/tools/laws/Proposed_36_CFR_Part_79_Amendment.pdf). DOI is soliciting comments for its consideration in adopting the amendment. Comments are due on Tuesday, February 17, 2015 and can be submitted electronically, by mail, or by hand delivery to DOI.

SHA also plans to submit comments for DOI’s consideration. To prepare comments that best represent the Society’s membership and its diverse views on this topic, SHA’s Collections and Curation Committee (CCC) invites your input on this important topic. The CCC will collect members�?input and use this input to prepare SHA’s formal comment over President Charlie Ewen’s signature. CCC member Julie King will be collecting and collating this input for the CCC’s consideration.

Regardless of whether or not you work in the United States or with Federal collections, all SHA members are invited to help shape the Society’s thinking about this important international issue.

The CCC has asked for your comments to be received no later than Tuesday, February 10, 2015. This is a strict cutoff point in order to allow the CCC to review all of the input received and prepare a formal comment that best represents the Society’s membership. Your comments can be sent to Julie by email at jking@smcm.edu. You can of course comment individually directly to the DOI but we would appreciate your input to the SHA’s formal reply.

Thank you in advance!

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Collections and Curation – Society for Historical Archaeology

Julia King — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 16:12:34 +0000

By Julia A. King Collections-based research is a form of archaeological excavation in its own right. Searching through the contents of boxes and old catalogs found deep in repositories is a process full of discoveries, as a group of us working in the Potomac River valley has learned over the last three years. Our purpose has been a reconsideration of colonialism as it was experienced in the lower Potomac and how that experience compares with places elsewhere, both within and beyond the Chesapeake. Through the reexamination of 35 archaeological collections recovered from sites ranging in date from 1500 through 1720, we have been able to develop narratives of interaction and encounter that are revealing just how much there is to learn from existing collections.

We could take such a regional focus only because we turned to existing collections; no single site or settlement could reveal this complex story. The collections we used were generated over a period of decades, beginning in the 1930s and 40s and continuing right on through to the present, each with its own history of creation. Some of the collections were generated by academic institutions, some by museums, some by volunteer organizations, and some by cultural resource management firms. At least one was generated by professionals generously volunteering to “rescue�?a site that was slated for imminent destruction through a change in land use. As varied as these collections are, the comparative perspective our project required revealed relationships among these sites that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

As the project winds down, there are observations that may be of use to people both using collections and generating them in the field.

Artifacts from sites used in the Colonial Encounters project

The first observation is that almost any collection is a good collection. For example (and not surprisingly), the collections we used that had been generated in the 1930s and 40s were problematic, but use them we did. These materials almost always lacked provenience information other than to the site, and, worse, artifacts we might have found useful had long ago been discarded, lost, or misplaced. Still, we included these collections anyway because, as problematic as they are, they are the only available datasets for some of the lower Potomac’s most important settlements. Our research results were better and stronger as a result even if the use of these collections was limited. Recently generated collections (the 1980s on) also have their challenges. These collections have been created using a variety of methods. Some of the collections, for example, were the result of wide-area survey projects while others were generated through site-focused data recovery efforts. We anticipated that these different methods would require a careful consideration of how collections were compared and we proceeded accordingly. We had to carefully consider sample size (including not just the nature of the test units but screen size) and artifact density, variability, and richness before we could begin organizing assemblages for comparison. In some cases, rather than comparing artifact assemblages, we compared the narratives developed for each site. Not perfect, but not that bad either. And, the different recovery methods did have a bright side: wide-scale surveys provided a broader landscape perspective lacking in focused site excavations, and the different sets of data could be complementary. The variability we observed in data collection strategies, however, does point to a need for dialogue about the ongoing generation of collections today. As more and more sites are excavated and their collections curated and made accessible, researchers are moving from considering a single site to considering a far broader context, as we are doing for the lower Potomac. Field practices and decisions that may work within the context of a single site (or landscape) may not support the kind of comparative research made possible by the increasing availability of other collections. Perhaps the most troubling issue we observed is a disciplinary mindset (for want of a better phrase) which continues to foster the never-ending field season, resulting in un-cataloged or under-cataloged collections along with no site report. More materials �?many more �?are dug up than can be reasonably processed and reported, despite universal acknowledgment that the curation crisis remains in full swing. Some of these materials make it into repositories, others don’t. Not surprisingly, most of these materials come from sites with lots of artifacts, increasing the dataset for these types of sites while low density sites remain under-represented in the collections archive. Also problematic is the variation evident in data collection strategies, not just from site to site but within sites. Excluding shovel tests, unit sizes varied widely in size (from 1.5-by-1.5-feet to 2-by-2-meters) and shape (from squares to rectangles), sometimes within sites. This can dramatically complicate spatial analysis. In a few cases, new grid systems were imposed at previously-tested sites, making the tracking of proveniences especially difficult. In one case, screen size was switched mid-project, presumably to enhance artifact recovery but making intrasite comparison as challenging as intersite comparison. The condition of field records was also disturbing: while many were detailed in the kinds of information they contained, not a few were woefully limited or incomplete (or altogether missing), with critical information left unrecorded. In one particularly egregious example, linking strata to excavated deposits at one very important site may ultimately prove to be impossible because elevation data were simply not recorded. No doubt most archaeologists can relate to the events that might lead to these problems. I struggle to get site reports completed in an environment where peer-reviewed publications and teaching evaluations are rewarded but site reports barely acknowledged. Sometimes new grid systems are necessary when benchmarks from earlier projects can’t be relocated. And, believe me, I know my volunteers and my students would rather dig and find stuff than wash. Finally, a lack of resources should never preclude efforts to “rescue�?truly threatened sites. Collections-based research �?using existing collections to pose and answer scholarly questions �?and field-based research �?actively generating new collections to pose and answer questions �?represent two approaches in the effort to create archaeological knowledge. Proponents of collections-based work decry the making of new collections as a perpetuation of the curation crisis. Their point is well-taken, but are they being heard? Is it realistic to think all digging must or should or will stop? Meanwhile, newly-generated assemblages become the collections of tomorrow. The cycle continues. The collections-based Potomac River project does not offer a perfect solution, but it does suggest one way forward. Those who generate collections in the field should work with those who use and advocate collections-based research to forge a critical dialogue about methods, methodology, and the ethics of fieldwork. Sure, the ethical concerns of generating and using collections may not rival recent discussions concerning treasure salvors or reality stars on backhoes, but don’t let that banality obscure the issues at stake. Collections are integral to both field- and collections-based research. By looking not just at the scholarly findings of collections-based research but the methods that resulted in the creation of those collections, we can resolve to dig smarter. Dig less, catalog more. Create collections that will be usable and that will be comparable, now and in the future.

Acknowledgments

“Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac Valley at Contact, 1500-1720�?was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities with additional support from the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, the Colonial Dames of America Chapter I, and Mr. Philip J. Mudd. Project participants include Gregory J. Brown, Laura J. Galke, Brad Hatch, Barbara J. Heath, Audrey J. Horning, Silas Hurry, Phil Levy, Mary Kate Mansius, Lauren McMillan, David Muraca, Dennis J. Pogue, Patricia Samford, Esther L. Rimer, and Scott M. Strickland. All of the datasets from this project along with interpretive papers will become available in early 2015 via the internet. The opinions in this blog post are my own.

The above is the inaugural blog post of a new series sponsored by the SHA Collections and Curation Committee. We will be inviting members who work with difference aspects of collections to blog about issues pertinent to collections management and use, as well as comment from their own perspective on the care and treatment of artifacts after they are removed from the ground. This follows on from the series of articles published in 2012-2014 in the SHA newsletter on similar themes. If you are sponsoring or participating in current projects incorporating collections-based components, we would welcome your suggestions and recommendations for blog posts. Please contact Sarah Platt at seplatt@syr.edu.

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