Dear All
I must second Michael here- I too did my doctoral work in the 1970's on
1930's bones from Greenland curated (in excellent fashion) at the Zoologiske
Museum in Copenhagen. We are now discovering that thanks to climate warming
conditions of preservation on many previously frozen middens in Greenland
are actually deteriorating really rapidly- the old collections from major
sites are in far better shape than the new bone material coming out of the
ground now. One more reason for long term curation. Especially given all the
advances in bone chemistry and new perspectives on use of metrics it seems
really unfortunate to dump bones ever- but as we all know this happens.
That said, storage is a problem and perhaps some creative off-site ideas
(metal ship containers are sometimes available cheap or free?) may be good
options in some climates. In the worst case the sort of triage Alice
describes (save the well dated contexts first) may have to be followed, with
creative uses like teaching or outreach collections taking care of the other
less well defined contexts? Not too many good answers, especially with cut
backs more likely than expanded resources for new buildings.
One item perhaps for general discussion- we all generate high % of "scrap
or unident" bone fragments that aren't very useful taxonomically and are
unlikely to be re-studied later on either (if it is only identifiable as
"mammal" it isn't a good target for isotopes etc.). After these are
appropriately counted and quantified would it be OK to dump these and save
just the identified bones? What do people think about this?
All the best
Tom
Dr. Thomas H. McGovern, Prof.
Director, Hunter College Zooarchaeology Laboratory
Coordinator, CUNY Doctoral Program Archaeology
Coordinator, North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO)
Address:
Dept. of Anthropology
Hunter College CUNY
695 Park Ave.
New York, N.Y.10021
email: [log in to unmask]
dept. office phone: 212 772 5410
Fax: 212 772 5423
lab phone 212 772 5656
-----Original Message-----
From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael A. Etnier
Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 11:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ZOOARCH] storing faunal assemblages
this is obviously a huge issue for archaeologists of any kind all over the
world. but speaking as a zooarchaeologist who has spent the bulk of my
research career analyzing museum collections, some of which were collected
in the 1880s, i would argue that we need to come up with creative long-term
storage solutions. if that means developing off-site storage facilities in
areas where land/rent/etc. are much cheaper than near the main museum
collections, then so be it.
i would also argue that we, as a discipline, should get creative about ways
in which we use existing collections.
i, too, have been brought up with the "don't throw anything away" ethic
[begging the question of "down to what minimum screen size?", which is
another discussion altogether]. but i have also developed a very strong
inclination that you shouldn't dig it up if you're not going to keep it.
it follows that if we're going to keep it, we should utilize it for all
it's worth.
Michael A. Etnier, PhD
Applied Osteology
Bellingham, WA
www.appliedosteology.com
and
Department of Anthropology
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
http://faculty.washington.edu/metnier/
-------- Original Message --------
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 1:02 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: SPAM-LOW: [ZOOARCH] storing faunal assemblages
>
> Dear colleagues,
> At the moment the warehouses in Hungary are full to beyond bursting
with
> finds of all kinds. At our museum, because of over-crowding, it is
impossile
> to find whole site materials let alone have good access to individual
> contexts I might wish to re-examine once they have been analyzed. The
> result is that excavating archaeologists are legitimately lobbying for
parts of
> bone and ceramic assemblages to be disposed of after analysis. The
> question is: What do we keep and what do we throw away?
> I was raised with the mantra - throw nothing away. That worked well
in
> the early days of archaeozoology where there were few space or money
> issues with regard to curating faunal assemblages. At the moment I am
> telling the archaeologists at our museum that all bones should be
identified
> and special bones separated and given inventory numbers whether they are
> fom mixed contexts or not. However, I am permitting all other bone from
> mixed period contexts (medieval and Roman, Neolithic and Bronze age,
> modern and whatever) to be tossed with plastic tablets identifying them
for
> future archaeologists or saved for education programs for children. This
> only accounts for 10-15% of the bone assemblages and my museum is
> already lobbying for more bones to be thrown out. This has become
> particularly difficult since non-archaeozoologists at the Hungarian
Central
> Excavating Authority already have a protocol that says large
proportions of
> faunal materials may be thrown away after identification, keeping aside
> 'measurable bones, burned bones, bones stained with metal, bones with
> butchering marks, pathologies and bones from rare species. Everything
else
> is thrown away no matter how clearly dated the archaeological context. It
> seems to me wrong to dispose of any faunal material from well-dated
> archaeological contexts. But then again, what to do with bones from an
> archaeological level where 200-300 years are represented? Roman contexts
> frequently appear with dates like 2nd-3rd century or 2nd-4th centuries.
Does
> this mean those bones should be selected using the above criteria and the
> remainder thrown away?
> I really do not know how to handle this question and would like to
see
> some kind of real politique consensus from the archaeozoological
> community. Principals are important but if we are too rigid the end
result will
> be that excavating archaeologists with either no longer collect bones or
> decide what to save on their own without consideration for our finer
> academic sensibilities.
>
> Alice Choyke
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