Well, if my esteemed colleague Adrian says I'm on the right track how can I disagree.  Shame it had to happen this week when every other historical and maritime archaeologist  in the southern Hemisphere is in Adelaide attending the Australasian Society for HA conference and not reading their email, while I'me here chained to my desk being flailed with wet conservation plans.

Adrian is right of course on his other point - that artefacts need to justify their existence in storage space that costs money.  In New South Wales there has been a lot of effort spent on finding the money to create a state archaeological repository, all to no avail.  The consequence is that archaeologists continue to accumulate collections in garages and spare rooms and in inappropriate dead storage areas.  The suggestion that we should seriously audit all of these and have a big spring clean of any that were comprised of incomplete or deteriorated labelling, lost contextual material and strat sheets etc. well-represented site types or just from amorphous fill deposits with negligible provenance, was not overly popular.  Get rid of them and spend the savings on looking after the better collections I say!

It may be different in the US but in Australia there has been considerable difficulty in getting university students interested in reanalysing older collections, with the notable exception of Tim Murray's La Trobe University group.  Even so, this sort of activity is really only worthwhile when the collection is of a certain standard (documentation, storage etc).  I'd be interested to know just how useful complete or comprehensive reanalysis of older excavated collections is and in what way.  That may provide some basis for setting a rational basis for culling either parts of or entire collections.

Denis



Denis Gojak
Heritage Asset Manager
NSW Department of Urban Affairs and Planning
2-10 Wentworth Street
Parramatta NSW 2150
PO Box 404 Parramatta 2124
Ph:    +61 2 9895 7940
Fax:   +61 2 9895 7946
Email: [log in to unmask]

>>> Praetzellis <[log in to unmask]> 11/27 1:08 pm >>>
Denis Gojak wrote:

>Or even judicious culling now and saving on storage space.

Best suggestion yet from Snowglojak. 

Said it before, will say it again... *careful* artifact culling is
essential before we drown in all those bottle bits and unidentifiable
scraps of iron. I made this suggestion a few years ago at an SHA roundtable
and to judge from the response you'd think I was advocating inter-species
marriage at the Vatican. 

Rant alert! Hit the delete key now.

At SSU's Archaeological Collections Facility we charge US$750 per 1.5 sq.
foot archive box to retain the materials *in perpetuity.* Almost all of the
stuff comes from CRM-related projects. This money goes into an untouchable
account and we use only the interest to pay a part-time curation manager to
take care of the stuff. As a longtime university employee and a former
museum board member I can tell you that these institutions only have an
interest in non-display quality artifacts as long as there is someone at
the institution to be an advocate for the materials. To steely-eyed
administrators, space is much more precious than bags of broken artifacts.
With the exception of those at major research institutions, I think that
archaeological collections without endowed/restricted funds behind them are
as in as much danger as a site in the path of a gravel quarry. 

I'd encourage archaeologists to ask what will happen to the money before
handing over their collections and curation fees. If the funds go to
current operating expenses, you might want to think twice about whether you
want to entrust your collections to that facility.

Ahhh. Now that feels much better!

Adrian Praetzellis
Sonoma State University