[Nhcoll-l] no-data archaeological material

[Peter Rauch]

What is an "artifact with no data"?

Why is it being called an "artifact"? That seems to imply that the
"artifact" itself is informing the observer (that it is an "artifact").

Why would one be fretting about what to do with "artifacts with no data" if
those "artifacts" are not informing the observer in _any_ intellectually
useful way(s) other than that the "artifacts" have no data?

There seems to be more to this issue of "no data" than simply "no data".
What is it?

I know there are many valued reasons regarding the need to have "data"
accompanying collection specimens. What I'm asking here is not about how to
dispose of "artifacts with no data", but why are artifacts with no data of
no value as "artifacts"?  Are they indeed useless --of no use whatsoever--
to an academic institution for informing Society? E.g., will no
self-respecting anthropologist even bother to ponder what stories a
dataless "artifact" can tell?

Are those artifacts themselves containers of self-identifying "data" (e.g.,
what is the material of which they are constituted, and are those materials
signatures of where those artifacts may have originated, and do those
origins suggest anything else informative about the artifact)?

If cost of storage and maintenance in the storage collection were not a
factor, would there be a tendency to retain those "artifacts with no data",
or to discard them anyway? I.e., how is the cost factor influencing the
decision to rate these "artifacts" of absolutely no redeeming value?

If these "artifacts with no data" were arrayed in front of ten
anthropologists generally knowledgeable about such objects (when
accompanied by "data", at least), would none of those anthropologists
recognize those "artifacts with no data" as artifacts of anthropogenic
origin? If they would recognize them as from human manufacture, then don't
those "artifacts" speak something useful to Anthropology? What?  BTW, past
curators DID deal with them --they made a decision to retain them, to not
discard them; perhaps that was simply because they had the storage space,
but it may be too that they believed that tomorrow might bring some new
thinking to the "artifact" table? Would a museum with no "artifacts with no
data" tell some naive future anthropologist that "Anthropology museums do
not and have never housed dataless artifacts"?

Just wondering what an "artifact with no data" actually is, and why a
museum would have some (can't figure out what to do with them).....

Peter

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 4:30 AM, Harding, Deborah <HardingD at carnegiemnh.org>
wrote:

> The Section of Anthropology, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, is in the
> last 3 months of a 3-year NEH grant to rehouse its 1.5 million
> archaeological specimens. As we get down to the last few boxes to go into
> our wonderful new cabinets, we’ve run into the problem of what should be
> done with artifacts having no data. Most of them are ground stone tools,
> and most come from early 20th century donations. Ethically, we can’t just
> rebury them, and we can’t sell them. Past curators didn’t want to deal with
> them, but now we have to.
>
>
>
> We’ve already got educational loan kits using no-data material, and the
> system will handle maybe one or two more kits. That’s maybe 40 items off
> the list. Have other institutions come up with solutions to the problem?
> Any suggestions would be appreciated. [We’ve already rejected paving our
> driveways or building patios.]
>
>
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>
> *Deborah G Harding*
>
> Collection Manager
>
> Section of Anthropology
>
> Carnegie Museum of Natural History
>
> 412-665-2608 <(412)%20665-2608>
>
> hardingd at carnegiemnh.org
>
>
>
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