I won't get in to the culling/curation issue now....that has been hashed
over and rehashed lately...to no accepted/unanimous conclusion....so
still continues.

But...did want to clarify a tiny bit...that the collections I was
referring to (in my email "to Gaye")...as having 1,000 items...are from
construction monitoring projects of a 1/4 of a city block, or so.  So
these are not from unit excavations & definitely not Phase II work.  The
amt is also the MNI of items, primarily diagnostic...not a count of ALL
the fragments collected.  :o)

Sorry to cause any confusion.   Don't have time for more...since I need
to get stuff done before leaving for the SHA conference.

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Meli
Diamanti
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 6:26 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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