Upcoming talk addresses curation crisis in archaeology

Sarah Shepard of the Arkansas Archeological Survey will present “Thinking Inside the Box: A Curation-Based Field School in Arkansas” at the November meeting of the Ouachita Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society. This talk will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. in the Rainey Room in the new CIC Building at Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts, 200 Whittington Ave., Hot Springs. The event is free and open to the public.

The continued focus of archaeological field schools on excavation without any emphasis or discussion of the associated long-term care of the resulting artifact collections is one of many factors in the current curation crisis. This tradition, combined with the lack of coursework focusing on curatorial methods, results in students being inadequately prepared for what is the largest responsibility of archaeology – to protect and maintain data for the future. This summer’s field school focused almost exclusively on curatorial methods and ethics, and provided hands-on experience in collections rehabilitation and data management. It also introduced students to the often-overlooked research value of existing artifact collections.

Sarah Shepard is the Registrar and Collections Manager at the Arkansas Archeological Survey. In addition, she serves as Coordinator for the Survey’s compliance with the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. She has worked with the Survey’s collections in many capacities for 10 years and oversees all records pertaining to site and project data across the state.

The Arkansas Archeological Survey’s research station at Henderson State University, 1042 Haddock St., Arkadelphia, holds regular Archaeology Lab Days on Thursdays. Students and members of the public are invited to come by the research station on Thursdays between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. to learn more about archaeology in Arkansas. For more information, contact Mary Beth Trubitt at 870-230-5510.