Summer 2013 Page 1 Published Quarterly Subscription Is Via Membership in the President’S Corner Society for Historical Archaeology Paul Mullins
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This Issue 2.... President’s Corner 4.... 2013 SHA & ACUA Elections 19.. Opinion & Debate 19.. Collections Curation 21.. PEIC Notes from the Trenches 23.. Death Notice (Paul Courtney) 24.. Images of the Past 25.. Current Research A gold rush pub in Australia - pp. 26-27. 26.. Asia 26.. Australasia & Antarctica 27.. Canada - West 27.. Continental Europe 29.. Great Britain & Ireland 30.. Latin America 30.. Underwater (worldwide) 32.. USA - Northeast 35.. USA - Pacific West REGISTER SOON Japanese camps in British Columbia - pp. 27-29. QUESTIONS THAT COUNT SHA Québec 2014 LES ENJEUX PRIORITAIRES SHA2014.com Historical archaeology in Scotland - pp. 29-30. Volume 46: Number 2 Summer 2013 Page 1 Published Quarterly Subscription is via membership in the President’s Corner Society for Historical Archaeology Paul Mullins Newsletter Editor: Archaeologists have been excavating historic artifact Alasdair Brooks, DPhil assemblages for more than a half century, and we all have PO Box 73042 been fortunate to have worked on fascinating sites and Dubai conducted important scholarship about life in the last United Arab Emirates half millennium. However, nearly all of us also have a <amb [email protected]> demoralizing curation story: perhaps it is about a wonderful archaeological collection that was stored in a closet because Copy Editor: Daniel McNaughton there was no collection management funding; maybe it is about a repository that is simply full or nearing capacity and Special Contributors: Current Publications: Richard Veit cannot accommodate more assemblages; it could be about Images of the Past: Benjamin Pykles an historic collection that was deaccessioned because an administrator did not consider the materials significant; or maybe the paperwork or photographs for a site have been Current Research Coordinators: lost or turned up incomplete or damaged. Africa: Kenneth Kelly SHA has long championed the development of Asia: Ruth Young concrete collections-management practices, and our rich Australasia & Antarctica: Sarah Hayes archaeological holdings have presented us with some Canada-Arctic: vacant increasingly problematic methodological, economic, and Canada-Atlantic: Amanda Crompton ethical challenges. The problems differ from one place to Canada-Ontario: Jon Jouppien the next, yet are familiar to most of us. Some long-term Canada-Prairie: vacant repositories are literally full, are unable to accommodate Canada-Québec: Stéphane Noël more collections, or have had their curatorial staff laid off; Canada-West: Doug Ross Caribbean/Bermuda: Frederick H. Smith other facilities charge archaeologists to store materials, Continental Europe: Natascha Mehler even though we often do not include particularly concrete Great Britain & Ireland: James Symonds financial curation plans in our project designs. Some curators Latin America: Pedro Paulo Funari have begun to deaccession collections or develop practices Middle East: Uzi Baram to guide them in deaccessing archaeological materials, and Underwater (Worldwide): Toni Carrell many historic materials are considered good candidates for USA-Alaska: Robin Mills reappraisal that may lead to discard, reburial, or some other USA-Central Plains: Jay Sturdevant deaccessioning. USA-Gulf States: Kathleen H. Cande In the past five years the SHA Curation Committee USA-Mid-Atlantic: Ben Resnick USA-Midwest: Lynne L.M. Evans has worked toward developing a best practices statement USA-Northeast: David Starbuck outlining responsible collections-management practices USA-Northern Plains & Mountain States: Steven G. Baker among professional organizations, state and federal agencies, USA-Pacific Northwest: Robert Cromwell and curators facing common management challenges. This USA-Pacific West: Kimberly Wooten work began under the direction of Committee Chair Bob USA-Southeast: Gifford Waters Sonderman and has continued since 2012 under Chair Deb USA-Southwest: Michael R. Polk Hull-Walski, with committee members Mark Warner and Giovanna Vitelli spearheading much of our recent work on the subject. A working document on deaccession practices Business Address: Society for Historical Archaeology, will be reviewed by the Curation Committee at the January 13017 Wisteria Drive #395, Germantown, MD 20874, Phone: 2014 SHA Conference. 301.972.9684, Fax: 866.285.3512, Email: <[email protected]> (New sub- Our goal throughout this discussion has been to scriptions, change of address, subscription fulfillment matters) encourage responsible and informed curatorial practice. 2013 The Society for Historical Archaeology 3rd Class Postage Narrowly defined, we face a practical resource challenge Paid impacting the expense of storage, but this has methodological implications concerning what we actually collect in the The paper used in this publication meets the minimum require- field; deaccessioning risks taking aim disproportionately at ments of the American National Stardards for Information Sci- historic artifacts; and management practices will shape what ences--Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, AN- data we leave available to subsequent scholars who might SIZ39.48-1984. work on the same collections. The committee members have worked toward developing practical frameworks for collections-management decision making that will Volume 46: Number 2 Summer 2013 Page 2 systematically outline informed curatorial strategies within methods and long-term storage of artifacts, but some are a project research designs. bit ambiguous, and even the best-planned curation plan can An increasingly large volume of historic artifacts and be derailed for any number of reasons. We share a common limited resources has required managers to reappraise belief that every artifact has some research potential, but we their holdings and develop concrete policies to manage need to soberly weigh the economic and practical realities space and resources in increasingly crowded repositories. of storing every object we recover forever, and we need to Deaccessioning is one of the most sensitive dimensions of acknowledge that a new generation of archaeologists will the curation crisis, and SHA is working with collections eventually inherit both our rich scholarship and scores managers to develop concrete, ethically defensible standards of assemblages gathering dust. We face many common for assessing, culling, sampling, or deaccessioning materials challenges, and we stand the best chance of developing in existing collections. For those collections that include responsible strategies if field archaeologists and collections historical archaeological materials, the voice of specialists managers share experiences, challenges, and real and needs to be at the heart of such a review process, and we need proposed solutions. to be advocates for the development of federal standards. We need to develop a systematic picture of exactly what We have historically tended to save almost everything the curation crisis means in different places. That discussion from archaeological sites, but for many of us who have needs to include collections managers who are tasked with religiously stored boxes of bricks or slowly eroding bags archiving and potentially assessing and deaccessioning of corroded metal there needs to be some way to evaluate materials they do not know especially well. The Council of the future research potential of such things. Specialists on Virginia Archaeologists’ study, conducted by Esther White particular classes of artifacts will need to sound in on the and Eleanor Breen, is an excellent example of a study that materials that are especially well represented in collections systematically assessed the archaeological holdings in one and help collections managers develop informed policies. state, and any practical management plan will need to start It is exceptionally challenging to predict what may one with such studies. Such a picture will allow state and federal day be important to scholars, but we need to reflectively agencies to develop the most sensitive and responsible and soberly make some of these difficult decisions today curation policies. if we wish to see anything preserved. If we wish to shape In 1996, former SHA Curation Committee Chair Bob deaccession policies we need to sound in now or we risk Sonderman argued that our disciplinary effort to preserve an having historical archaeology collections assessed by people astounding volume of artifacts has created “an overwhelming who are not trained in the materials and methodologies of sense of primal fear when the thought of deaccessioning the discipline. archeological material is raised.” We do indeed have an Perhaps most critically, if we are going to preserve so emotionally charged approach to collection and curation many collections, then we need to encourage scholars to use of artifacts: we value every object in an assemblage as an those collections and not simply consign them to dead storage element in a complex historical narrative, and we preserve into perpetuity. Esther White and Eleanor Breen’s thorough nearly every artifact because we know scientific advances 2012 assessment analysis of Virginia’s archaeological may one day unleash new insights from old things. Yet repositories revealed that more than two-thirds of Virginia’s decades of enormously productive historical archaeology archaeological repositories are never used for research at fieldwork have left us with a voluminous material heritage all. For those academics administering student research, to manage, and it is our ethical responsibility