Field-Based Decisions on the Collection of Archaeological Materials: Monitoring and Ethics

Collections ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 155019062095154
Author(s):  
Ellen Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Archaeological Artifacts ◽  
Ways Of Life ◽  
Monitoring Information

Cultural resource managers are faced with increasing challenges regarding decisions to collect archaeological artifacts from site contexts. Increased visitation, information sharing through social media, and recreation contribute to challenges to preserving archaeological sites and the undisturbed artifacts they contain. Many National Park Service cultural resource managers and staff are directed to manage archaeological resources in-situ. To our tribal colleagues, archaeological sites and artifacts represent links to their oral histories and their ancestors. To others, artifacts provide insights to past ways of life and add an intangible and irreplaceable quality to archaeological sites. Under normal circumstances materials gathered during data recovery projects are curated as they should be. Grab-samples and artifacts from unexcavated archaeological contexts, that is surface collection, must be carefully evaluated prior to gathering archaeological materials, otherwise we run the risk of storing artifacts for decades that are not analyzed, curated, or used to further our knowledge about the past. This article presents a case study of how monitoring information and field-based decision-making guided the collection, but not the accession, of an archaeological artifact from an in-situ context.

Building a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-35
Author(s):  
Jenny Masur
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Underground Railroad ◽  
Service Program ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Significant Events ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Railroad Network ◽  
Park Service

Many cultural anthropologists have studied networks and how people reinterpret and attach symbols to these networks, pulling symbols from a grab-bag of collectively significant events and personages. As an ethnographer working for a new National Park Service program, I find myself involved in creating "networks" and affecting construction of "meanings," rather than studying the process as an outside observer. In the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, created by Congress, my colleagues and I affect and effect relationships between groups previously unfamiliar with one another or previously not considered to fit under one umbrella. It would it be putting on blinders to analyze "transformations of popular concepts of the Underground Railroad" without considering the National Park Service and other cultural resource managers' role in public education, historic preservation, and use of memory in exhibits and publications.

Portable in practice: investigations using portable instrumentation for materials analysis and mapping of decorated architectural surfaces in the tablinum of the House of the Bicentenary at Herculaneum

MRS Advances ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (33-34) ◽  
pp. 1831-1848
Author(s):  
Kiernan Graves ◽  
David Carson ◽  
Ilaria Catapano ◽  
Giacomo Chiari ◽  
Gianluca Gennarelli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Portable Instrumentation ◽  
Collaborative Project ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Roman Painting ◽  
Severe Deterioration ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Multi Disciplinary Team

ABSTRACTThe conservation of the architectural surfaces in the tablinum of the House of the Bicentenary at the ancient Roman site of Herculaneum is a collaborative project of the Getty Conservation Institute, the Herculaneum Conservation Project and the Soprintendenza Pompeii. The tablinum was selected as a case study given the significance, beauty, and severe deterioration of its decorated surfaces. A multi-disciplinary team with a wide range of expertise, comprised of conservators, chemists, geo-physicists, engineers, and conservation scientists, worked in partnership across a number of institutions with the objective to study the wall paintings in the tablinum. Scientists and conservators worked together to test the feasibility of portable techniques and in situ investigations to better understand Roman painting technology; identify previous restoration materials; determine the presence of alteration products; and characterize deterioration mechanisms commonly found on architectural surfaces at archaeological sites of the Vesuvian Region. The collection and interpretation of the instrumental data has been critical to the design and implementation of appropriate passive and remedial interventions to stabilize the architectural surfaces and mitigate deterioration. The paper will present the results of the investigations using portable instrumentation along with a discussion of the capabilities and limitations of each technique and the practical implications of their use for architectural surfaces on archaeological sites.

Remote Sensing: A Handbook for Archeologists and Cultural Resource Managers. Thomas R. Lyones and Thomas Eugene Avery. Cultural Resources Management Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 1977. viii + 109 pp., illus., biblio., glossary, index. Paper. - Remote Sensing: Practical Exercises on Remote Sensing in Archeology. Supplement No. 1. Thomas Eugene Avery and Thomas R. Lyons. Cultural Resources Management Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 1978. iv + 32 pp., illus., selected answer key. Paper. - Remote Sensing: Instrumentation for Non-destructive Exploration of Cultural Resources. Supplement No. 2. Stanley A. Morain and Thomas K. Budge. Cultural Resources Management Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 1978. vi + 53 pp., illus., biblio. Paper. - Remote Sensing: Aerial Anthropological Perspectives: A Bibliography of Remote Sensing in Cultural Resource Studies. Supplement No. 3. Thomas R. Lyons Robert K. Hitchcock, and Wirth H. Wills Cultural Resources Management Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 1980. 25 pp. Paper. - Remote Sensing: A Handbook for Archeologists and Cultural Resource Managers Basic Manual Supplement: Oregon. Supplement No. 4.. C. Melvin Aikens William G. Loy, Michael D. Southard and Richard C. Hanes Cultural Resources Management Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 1980. v + 37 pp., illus., biblio. Paper. - Remote Sensing: Multispectral Analyses of Cultural Resources: Chaco Canyon and Bandelier National Monument. Supplement No. 5.. Thomas R. Lyon. editor. Cultural Resources Management Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 1981. iv + 63 pp., illus., biblio. Paper. - Remote Sensing: Archeological Applications of Remote Sensing in the North Central Lowlands. Supplement No. 6. Craig Baker and George J. Gumerman Cultural Resources Management Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 1981. vi + 53 pp., illus., biblio. Paper. - Remote Sensing: Aerial and Terrestrial Photography for Archaeologists. Supplement No. 7. Thomas Eugene Avery and Thomas R. Lyons Cultural Resources Management Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 1981. viii + 48 pp., illus., biblio. Paper.

1983 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-204
Author(s):  
Michael Allen Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Cultural Resources Management ◽  
Resources Management ◽  
The North ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Park Service

scholarly journals Fuentes de color mejoradas para el modelado tridimensional de artefactos arqueológicos de tamaño medio localizados in situ.

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio I. Apollonio ◽  
Massimo Ballabeni ◽  
Marco Gaiani
Keyword(s):  
Processing System ◽  
3D Models ◽  
Archaeological Artifacts ◽  
Definition Of

The paper describes a color enhanced processing system - applied as case study on an artifact of the Pompeii archaeological area - developed in order to enhance different techniques for reality-based 3D models construction and visualization of archaeological artifacts. This processing allows rendering reflectance properties with perceptual fidelity on a consumer display and presents two main improvements over existing techniques: a. the color definition of the archaeological artifacts; b. the comparison between the range-based and photogrammetry-based pipelines to understand the limits of use and suitability to specific objects.

scholarly journals Quantitative analysis of micromorphological images in edaphosedimentary sequences of the archaeological sites of Tequendama and Aguazuque, Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia

2020 ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Angélica Viviana Triana Vega ◽  
Santiago Vélez Bedoya ◽  
Sergey Sedov ◽  
Elizabeth Solleiro Rebolledo ◽  
Jaime Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Arid Conditions ◽  
Environmental Interactions ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Paleoenvironmental Interpretation ◽  
Ways Of Life ◽  
Important Site

The Bogotá savanna is a very important site for Colombian archeology. At this site, researchers have identified the settlements of hunter-gatherers and agricultural farmers who inhabited the territory from the late Pleistocene to the late Holocene. These archaeological studies have established the ways of life, social dynamics and environmental interactions of these groups. To clarify settlement processes, this article presents a detailed micromorphological and micromorphometric analysis of sediments collected in archeological excavations conducted at the Tequendama and Aguazuque sites in the municipality of Soacha, Cundinamarca. This analysis quantifies the contents of archaeological materials, such as bone and coal, as well as carbonate remains, which are associated with various activities. The results show differences in the abundance of bones and charcoal between settlement levels. Level 7A (dated 6,897-7,001 BP) of the Tequendama site shows the highest density of occupation and activities of all levels analyzed in this study. Furthermore, based on paleoenvironmental interpretation, the presence of secondary carbonates indicates arid conditions in the Bogotá savanna matching the regional climatic records.

Soil Chemical Analysis of Ancient Activities in Cerén, El Salvador: A Case Study of a Rapidly Abandoned Site

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Jacob Parnell ◽  
Richard E. Terry ◽  
Payson Sheets
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metals ◽  
Chemical Analysis ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Reasonable Accuracy ◽  
Chemical Signatures ◽  
Chemical Residues ◽  
Activity Areas

Activities performed over long periods of time tend to leave soil chemical residues as evidence of those activities. Some of the questions studied in this paper deal with the interpretive capabilities provided by chemical patterns. Soil samples from Cerén, El Salvador, a well-preserved site, were analyzed for extractable phosphorus and heavy metals. We compared in situ artifacts collected from the site with chemical signatures that indicate activity areas. We found that elevated concentrations of phosphorus were associated with food preparation, consumption, and disposal. Heavy metals were associated with the interior of the structure where pigments and painted gourds were found. In this case, where well-preserved, in situ artifacts were available for analysis, we found that chemical analysis was effective in locating human activity areas. Our findings indicate that chemical analysis can be used to guide interpretation in areas of poor artifact preservation with reasonable accuracy, and in archaeological sites that underwent gradual abandonment.

scholarly journals INTERNATIONAL APPROACHES TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND CULTURAL HERITAGE

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-641 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Hambrecht ◽  
Marcy Rockman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Heritage Science ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
Park Service ◽  
The Usa

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly threatening cultural heritage; cultural resource managers, communities, and archaeologists are confronting this reality. Yet the phenomenon is happening over such a wide range of physical and sociocultural contexts that it is a problem too big for any one organization or discipline to tackle. Therefore, the sharing of best practices and examples between the communities dealing with this problem is essential. This article presents examples from communities, cultural resource managers, and archaeologists who are engaging with climate change–based threats to cultural heritage. Our presentation of these international activities follows the US National Park Service (NPS) four-pillar approach to climate-change threats to cultural heritage: science, mitigation, adaptation, and communication. We discuss this approach and then present a number of cases in which communities or institutions are attempting to manage cultural heritage threatened by climate change through these four pillars. This article restricts itself to examples that are taking place outside of the USA and concludes with some general recommendations for both archaeologists and funding entities.

Archaeointensity data from Japan: current status and future perspectives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tadahiro Hatakeyama ◽  
Evdokia Tema ◽  
Naoko Matsumoto
Keyword(s):  
Secular Variation ◽  
Absolute Intensity ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
High Coercivity ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Archaeological Artifacts ◽  
Okayama Prefecture

<p>Japan is a country with very rich cultural heritage and with many archaeological sites that can offer precious information about the geomagnetic field secular variation in the past. However, even though archaeomagnetic research in Japan started more than 60 years ago, with numerous studies focused on archaeodirection determinations of in situ archaeological structures, the available up to now archaeointensity data are still scarce. Most of the absolute intensity records come from archaeomagnetic studies carried in 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, mainly obtained with the original Thellier-Thellier method and/or its modifications. In none of these data, cooling rate and anisotropy corrections were applied. During the last 20 years, only two more archaeointensity studies have been published, applying the Tsunakawa-Shaw palaeointensity method on baked clays from Japanese kilns. This current status of archaeointensity studies in Japan makes evident the need of new high-quality reference data in order to reconstruct the geomagnetic intensity secular variation path in Japan. In this perspective, in the frame of the “Be-Archaeo” MSCA-RISE project, we have collected a total of 56 fragments of archaeological artifacts from the archaeological sites of Sada Higashizuka, Sada Nishizuka, Tatezaka, Tenguyama, Tatetskuki and Nima Ohtsuka, situated at the Okayama prefecture. The baked clays studied belong to ancient coffins, haniwa artifacts and pottery and their ages range from 100 AD to 675 AD. Preliminary rock magnetic and archaeomagnetic analysis including magnetic susceptibility, Q-ratio, isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) curves, thermal demagnetization of a composite IRM component as well as stepwise thermal and alternating field (AF) demagnetizations were performed to investigate the magnetic mineralogy of the samples and their suitability for archaeointensity experiments. The results show the presence of a magnetic mineral with Curie temperature ranging from 480 to 560 <sup>o</sup>C, most probably magnetite and/or Ti-magnetite. IRM curves and AF demagnetization suggest also the presence of a high coercivity component in some samples, as saturation is not reached at 1 T and samples are not completely demagnetized at 180 mT. Demagnetization diagrams reveal a stable single component of magnetization for most of the samples. However, some samples demonstrate disturbed Zijderveld diagrams and/or two components of magnetization; no correlation between the quality of the results and the material studied (pottery, haniwa or coffin fragments) was found. These preliminary results were used to select promising samples for archaeointensity experiments, aiming to obtain new high-quality archaeointensity records for the Late Yayoi and Kofun periods.</p>

scholarly journals ‘Haven't we dug enough now?’ Excavation in the light of intergenerational equity

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Bonnie
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Cultural Resource Management ◽  
Intergenerational Equity ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Policy Statement ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Planning Policy

In western Europe, cultural resource management agencies have enforced, through treaties and legislation, the principle that archaeological sites endangered by development are protected. Excavation has played – and still plays – a major role in this: thousands of archaeological sites that are threatened by destruction have been ‘rescued’ through excavations. While treaties (e.g. Malta 1992, 4.2) and legislations (e.g. Planning Policy Statement 5, A.13; Wet op de archeologische monumentenzorg, 2007) stipulate that rescue excavation stands equal to protection, they also acknowledge that there are better ways – like in situ preservation – to protect our heritage.

SenCity – Evaluating Users’ Experiences of Intelligent Lighting for Well-Being in Smart Cities

2018 ◽  
pp. 60-67
Author(s):  
Henrika Pihlajaniemi ◽  
Anna Luusua ◽  
Eveliina Juntunen
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Evaluation Methods ◽  
Data Analyses ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
System Data

This paper presents the evaluation of usersХ experiences in three intelligent lighting pilots in Finland. Two of the case studies are related to the use of intelligent lighting in different kinds of traffic areas, having emphasis on aspects of visibility, traffic and movement safety, and sense of security. The last case study presents a more complex view to the experience of intelligent lighting in smart city contexts. The evaluation methods, tailored to each pilot context, include questionnaires, an urban dashboard, in-situ interviews and observations, evaluation probes, and system data analyses. The applicability of the selected and tested methods is discussed reflecting the process and achieved results.

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