My collection is probably different from both Carol's and Meli's in that it 
was for Ph.D research so I got to excavate all of the back yard between the 
house and the kitchen. That yielded 18 cardboard boxes of artifacts, only a 
percentage of which were large or whole items found in rubbish pits.

My definition of a diagnostic artifact is one that was useful for my 
research either to help with dating or determining activities/assemblage 
composition.  There were more artifacts not included in that then were 
included.

My amount like Carol's is a MNI of items, in my case diagnostic ones, with 
the MNI calculated for each spit as I was using them in a dating formula.

Cheers

Gaye

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carol Serr" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 3:47 AM
Subject: Re: assemblages - & ethics


>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.
> [log in to unmask]