Monthly meetings

Guest Speaker: Matt Boulanger

Abstract:  The 1971–1972 Texas Archaeological Society field schools, cohosted by Southern Methodist University, resulted in the identification of 230+ archaeological sites in Central Texas and partial excavation of several of these sites. Few of these sites were registered with the State of Texas. Poor curatorial practices—including lack of interest

and support from sponsors—in intervening years have led to these collections being inaccessible for researchers and public alike. This presentation will discuss the effort to develop local partnerships aimed at creating hands-on collaborative relationships to increase public awareness of the curation crisis, and the, at times ugly, realities of archaeology. I argue that citizen-science programs are ideal ways to address strong public interest and curiosity about archaeology, while also addressing the mountainous backlog of projects and data on which institutions sit. Curatorial repositories must adopt direct public involvement as a primary objective if we wish (1) to address the backlog of basic work needed to bring our collections into use; and (2) to promote the relevancy of archaeology in the modern era. I conclude with a brief summary of accomplishments and changes that have been underway at SMU's Archaeology Research Collections during the past two years, providing an update for NTAS members who have not been able to attend, and to increase public awareness of the resources we would like to make available to the North Texas archaeological community.