The Present Status of the Curation Crisis and Deaccessioning in the United States by Marina Tinkcom B.A. (Archaeology), University of Wyoming, 2014 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Archaeology Faculty of Environment © Marina Tinkcom 2019 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2019 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Approval Name: Marina Tinkcom Degree: Master of Arts (HRM) Title: The Present Status of the Curation Crisis and Deaccessioning in the United States Examining Committee: Chair: Jonathan Driver Professor Mark Collard Senior Supervisor Professor Jody Clauter Supervisor Project Archaeologist, Supervisor Alpine Archaeological Consulting George Nicholas External Examiner Professor Date Defended/Approved: January 21, 2019 ii Ethics Statement iii Abstract Archaeological collections in the United States were deemed to be in crisis in the 1970s. Federal curation guidelines were issued in 1990 with 36 CFR Part 79, followed by a call for national standards by the Society for American Archaeology. It is not clear if these were successful because the current status of collections is generally unknown. Given this, I surveyed curation practices at 11 major US archaeological repositories, impediments to their implementation of modern curation standards, and their deaccessioning policies. Although many of the individual standards were being met, around one-third of the collections do not meet all the standards. Methods used to meet standards varied across institutions, and the major contributor to collections was heritage resource management. Funding and space were the most often reported impediments. Every institution reported deaccessioning, but not all had policies. Ultimately, collections have improved since the 1970s, but further progress is needed. Keywords: curation crisis; archaeological collections; curation standards; questionnaire; deaccessioning iv Dedication To my mother, Rebecca, who taught me to have fun, learn lots, and be happy. To my father, Ken, who I missed every step of this journey. v Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the support of LTA, Inc. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Tom Larson, for encouraging ongoing learning in the field, in school, and across the world. To Dori Penny, having you in my corner makes me feel invincible. To my supervisor, Mark Collard, for encouraging a positive outlook through the setbacks, and whose prompts strengthened my abilities as a writer, thank you. To Jody Clauter, thank you for selflessly taking me as a mentee. You are an exemplary archaeologist, curator, and woman. To George Nicholas, thank you for your questions in class and as my External EXaminer, they managed to at once challenge and empower me. Thank you, too, for the unexpected River Basin Papers. Finally, to my friends and family who had to hear a lot of “no” through this process, thank you for putting up with me. vi Table of Contents Approval.......................................................................................................................... ii Ethics Statement .............................................................................................................iii Abstract.......................................................................................................................... iv Dedication ....................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ vi Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ................................................................................................................. ix List of Figures ................................................................................................................. X List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................ xi Glossary......................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 1.1. The origins of the curation crisis ............................................................................ 1 1.2. Previous studies on the curation crisis ................................................................... 4 1.3. Goals of the present study ..................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2. Background .............................................................................................. 7 2.1. History of archaeology and collections in the US ................................................... 7 2.1.1. Early history .................................................................................................. 7 2.1.2. New Deal archaeology .................................................................................. 8 2.1.3. River Basin surveys ..................................................................................... 11 2.1.4. The development of HRM as an industry ..................................................... 12 2.2. Laws and policies ................................................................................................ 14 2.2.1. The turn of the century: protecting and preserving sites and artifacts .......... 14 2.2.2. The Great Depression and post-World War II .............................................. 16 2.2.3. Federal accountability: the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s .................................. 17 2.2.4. 36 CFR 79 and NAGPRA of 1990 ............................................................... 18 2.2.5. Summary of laws and policies ..................................................................... 19 2.3. History of the curation crisis and accounts of progress ........................................ 20 2.3.1. The curation crisis leading up to 36 CFR Part 79 ......................................... 20 2.3.2. Changes in the curation crisis ...................................................................... 22 Chapter 3. Materials and methods .......................................................................... 27 3.1. Research protocol ............................................................................................... 27 3.2. Participants ......................................................................................................... 28 3.3. Data collection tools ............................................................................................ 31 3.3.1. The instrument and treatment of data .......................................................... 31 3.3.2. Survey structure .......................................................................................... 32 3.4. Procedures .......................................................................................................... 33 3.5. Curation standards .............................................................................................. 34 3.6. Correlations between research questions, survey questions, and modern curation standards ...................................................................................................................... 37 3.6.1. Assumptions ................................................................................................ 41 Chapter 4. Results.................................................................................................... 43 vii 4.1. Demographic results ........................................................................................... 43 4.2. Research Question 1: current status of the curation crisis ................................... 45 4.3. Research Question 2: modern curation standards ............................................... 45 4.4. Research Question 3: methods used to achieve modern curation standards ....... 54 4.4.1. Non-structured survey question response results ........................................ 54 4.4.2. Structured survey question response results ............................................... 55 4.5. Research Question 4: how curation crisis issues are being solved ...................... 57 4.6. Research Question 5: percentage of collections not up to modern curation standards ...................................................................................................................... 58 4.7. Research Question 6: deaccessioning policies .................................................... 58 4.8. Research Question 7: percentage of collections by project type .......................... 59 4.9. Summary of results ............................................................................................. 59 Chapter 5. Discussion and conclusions ................................................................. 61 5.1. Study findings ...................................................................................................... 61 5.1.1. Main findings ............................................................................................... 61 5.1.2. Modern curation standards implementation