Meli

I have been working on an urban site in New Orleans Louisiana and have run into the same issue.  We have about 30 boxes of artifacts for a historic dump site and need to cull it down for curration.  We spoke with the Louisiana SHPO and they approved keeping a 10% sample of all non-diagnostic artifacts.  The rest are being weighed, counted and discarded.  All diagnostics are being retained for curration of course. 

Sarah Paulson
Earth Search, Inc.
New Orleans, LA
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-----Original Message-----
>From: Meli Diamanti <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Jan 7, 2008 8:26 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: buttons to assemblages to ethics
>
>Although Gaye & Carol's messages were meant to be private, I picked up 
>on something and would like to use it as a springboard to my own 
>question.  I noticed that Gaye mentioned a collection of over 8000 
>DIAGNOSTIC artifacts (emphasis mine), and Carol mentioned a typical 
>collection being about 1000 items (diagnostic or non-diagnostic not 
>mentioned).
>
>I have been excavating house yards in the c.1880s-1930s steel towns 
>around Pittsburgh, PA for a proposed new turnpike construction project.  
>I tend to get over 1000 artifacts in a Phase I survey of a houselot 
>(mostly close interval shovel testing and maybe 1-2 test units at most), 
>and get closer to 10,000 in a Phase II (maybe 8-12 test units).  In 
>addition to the usual building materials (including flat glass), these 
>sites generate a lot of domestic artifacts.  But most of it is from 
>trampled yard deposits, where artifacts are small, not from shaft 
>features such as privy or cistern, where artifacts tend to be preserved 
>in larger pieces.
>Most of the domestic artifacts are ending up in two categories that seem 
>to be of little interpretive use: - plain (undecorated) ironstone body 
>sherds and unidentifiable fragments of curved glass (could be from 
>bottles etc or from tablewares, no diagnostic embossing or other labels, 
>not large enough to determine shape/size, etc.).
>Can anyone suggest ways to wring more information out of this data, 
>beyond its basic spatial distribution within the site yard?  If they are 
>non-diagnostic, is it acceptable to propose that not all of them need to 
>be curated?  This gets back to the problem with state curation 
>facilities getting filled up.  I would like to cull the collection, such 
>as only keeping a sample percentage of these non-diagnostic items.  
>Pennsylvania already has a policy in place for discarding portions of 
>flat glass and other building materials, as well as unidentifiable rusty 
>metal lumps.  But the state wants to open the question of discarding 
>addition materials from recent historic sites to wider debate before 
>making a decision. So I am looking for input, either information on 
>curation and discard decisions in other urban projects or other states; 
>or information on how to get more data value out of the artifacts and 
>therefore consider them worth keeping in full.
>I would like to see discussion on the list, especially since I can't 
>attend the SAA and bring this up at the ethics bowl.  If you prefer, you 
>are also welcome to reply directly to me off-list.  Thanks,
>Melissa Diamanti
>Archaeological & Historical Consultants, Inc.
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