Speakers:
Dr. R. P. Stephen Davis (Associate Director, RLA, UNC–CH) has more than four decades of experience working with archaeological collections. For the past 30 plus years, he has skillfully rehabilitated and maintained the RLA’s extensive collections, which contain over eight million artifacts from more than 8,000 archaeological sites.
Dr. Heather A. Lapham (Research Archaeologist, RLA, UNC–CH) has been managing archaeological collections from the Eastern and Southwestern United States for more than a decade. She has worked with collections in a variety of museum and institutional settings, including the Smithsonian Institution, Southern Illinois University, and most recently at UNC-CH.
Care of Archaeological Collections Workshop
Monday, March 13, 2017
9:30am – 4:00pm
This workshop is designed for staff who work at organizations that care for archaeological collections. The instructors will discuss various archaeological objects, their material composition, and methods for stabilization and long term storage. Learn how to evaluate and improve your knowledge of what you have and where to find it (accountability) and how to make it available for educational and scientific use (accessibility). Exchange ideas about best practices for archaeological collections curation that can be implemented by both large and small museums. Explore practical and creative solutions to a variety of problems that arise with maintaining these collections. Emphasis will be placed on methods collections staff can use to preserve archaeological objects and their associated information for current and future use, and how to balance ideal curation standards with what can be achieved within the reality of limited resources.
Workshop Location:
Research Laboratories of Archaeology (RLA) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill