Monday, May 6, 2019

Curation Research: Looking Back to Move Forward


FSJ Friends!

I hope everyone enjoyed the crazy April showers. While the rain isn’t good for field work, it is great for curation research and planning!

Figure 1. The Michigan History Center showcases wonderful exhibits
for all ages and hosts a variety of education programs and events
 throughout the years. If you haven't attended their event for
Michigan Archaeology Day, typically held in October,
 make sure to do so this year!
As I mentioned in my last blog, I had the opportunity to visit the repository for Michigan’s State Historic Preservation Office and chat with Dean Anderson, State Archaeologist, Stacy Tchorzynski, Archaeologist, and Jessica Yann, Archaeology Graduate Student Assistant. Most of the archaeological artifacts in the State of Michigan’s care are located at the Michigan History Center (Figure 1). Jessica informed me that the State cares for around 3,000 collections from terrestrial and underwater archaeological sites in Michigan. These include items from state-owned lands, donated collections from sites in Michigan, and collections from cultural resource management firms or government agencies resulting from work to comply with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.  For those who aren’t familiar with Section 106, the law requires an assessment of any federal undertaking so that its potential impacts on an historic properties (e.g., building, bridge, lighthouse, prehistoric or historic archaeology sites, etc.) can be examined and commented on by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. From these evaluations and in consultation with the State Historic Preservation Officer, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, and Native Tribes, preservation requirements are determined for the project if it is to move forward. For more specific information, here is a link that I think sums up Section 106 nicely:https://www.nps.gov/history/tribes/Documents/106.pdf. . 

During my visit, Jessica gave me an informative tour of the collection storage room. She showed me the various options used to store the collections, including archival cabinets, display cases, and storage boxes placed on metal shelving (Figure 2). We also discussed the room’s security access and its environmental regulations. Finally, Jessica told me a little bit about the new collection database that the State Historic Preservation Office was using. Previously, they had used the Argus database, the collection management system used by the Mackinac State Historic Parks. However, within the last few years a decision was made to switch to a new digital platform. This new system has the same recording categories (e.g., catalog number, site, provenience, material type, function, storage location, count, weight, description, etc.) as Argus and Past Perfect, but the screen layout is slightly different and there are some new map functions. One aspect that appealed to me was the fact that the database can be accessed online for those with appropriate credentials. How exciting! While there are still a few kinks to work out with this database program, it will be interesting to hear more about its capabilities as it continues to be developed.
Figure 2. These archival cabinets provide many options for storing collections. Artifacts that are fragile or frequently asked about are placed in display cases by the staff members to add another layer of protection. 


Through this project and from my own life experience, I have found that to look forward and explore new options for whatever your task may be, you must know from where you began so you can appreciate how far you have come. So, I reached out to a former Project member, Erin Claussen, who played a crucial role in setting up the management system the Project currently uses. She provided a lot of background information that let me take a step back to better understand the development of the collection’s organization, specifically in regards to the archaeological artifacts.

Initially, the artifacts were organized by Project members according to their three-digit accession number which details the excavation year, site number, and catalog number. For example, the accession number 18-2-1 indicates that the associated artifacts were recovered in 2018 from the second site excavated that year by the Project and that these specific artifacts were the first to be collected. Accession numbers have and continue to provide a link to the information recorded about each artifact as they were documented on a field specimen log and on the corresponding excavation field notes. After the field season, the artifacts were transferred (on loan from the Fort St. Joseph Museum, now the Niles History Center) to the archaeology lab at Western Michigan University so the Project could perform an inventory of the material recovered. The inventory included information regarding the artifacts’ accession number, spatial location, material type, function, description, count, weight, and other useful notations. Following inventory, the artifacts were transported back to the, then, Fort St. Joseph Museum for storage and long-term care, maintaining the accession number method of organization. Each year’s inventory was recorded in separate Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, requiring researchers to search each file individually for the information they were interested in.

After a decade of excavation, the Project began to rethink this organizational method, recognizing the vast amount of materials represented in the collection and the collection’s research potential. In 2010, Erin assisted in developing a management plan for the Project in her master’s thesis, “Fort St. Joseph 1.0: Creating a Comprehensive Information Management Scheme for the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project.” Erin implemented the tools needed for the Project to begin recording the artifacts’ information in the collection management system Past Perfect and helped in reorganizing the collection by raw material (e.g., iron, brass, fauna, etc.) and function (e.g., activity, tool, etc.) rather than by the artifacts’ accession numbers. The collection reorganization and recording in Past Perfect was a large undertaking for the Project and the, then, Fort St. Joseph Museum. Members of the Project worked on the tasks over the course of a few years to complete the transition.

Currently, inventory information is entered each year into Past Perfect as well as logged on an Excel spreadsheet. Some photographs are taken of various artifacts and stored on the archaeology lab’s computer. After these steps are completed, the artifacts are taken to the Niles History Center and integrated with artifacts found in previous years. For the most part, the Project and Niles History Center have continued using Erin’s system with some success as members have maintained this organization for the archaeologically recovered artifacts. There are some problems, however, with the system that have become apparent over the years and now need to be addressed. I will provide more details on this topic in my next post!

While there is more that can be gleaned from resources that have not been discovered just yet, the research gathered in Phase 1 of this curation project has provided a useful start. As our own collection challenges have come to light as well as potential future problems, it is now time to begin developing a specific plan of action.

Stay tuned for more updates,
Erika Hartley

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