The 2018 SAA statement encouraging collaboration between archaeologists and “responsible and responsive stewards” included recommendations epitomizing decades of established practice at the University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist (OSA), a research center housing the State Archaeological Repository of Iowa. At the time the SAA statement was published, OSA staff were actively implementing a grant supporting transfer to the State Repository of the John and Phil Palmquist Archaeological Collection. This grant was designed to provide hands-on research experience for undergraduate students interested in archaeology and collections management while recording improved site locational data and artifact specific documentation, including on relatively rare (for the area) red pipestone artifacts. Although modest by some standards, the Palmquist Collection includes 860 artifacts from 26 locations recorded through 40 years of surface survey by the family in a portion of Iowa that is rarely the focus of professional archaeologists. This article provides a case study of responsible archaeological practice implementing SAA recommendations, including treating collector-collaborators with respect, encouraging collector assistance in the recording of finds, capturing research data from a private collection, and facilitating curation of privately owned materials. We include brief consideration of the impact of the Palmquist Collection on the understanding of southwestern Iowa archaeology.

Archaeological collections are foundational to the discipline. Yet, researchers who study curated assemblages can face challenges. Here, we show how experimental archaeology can play a vital role in the interpretation of old archaeological collections. The Welling site, in Coshocton County, Ohio, is a multicomponent, stratified site with a substantial Clovis component in its lower levels. Using experimental flaked stone replication, we create an analog model of a “pure” Clovis bifacial debitage assemblage, as might be found at a lithic workshop. We predicted that if the Welling Clovis debitage assemblage was representative of a lithic workshop, then it would be similar to the experimental model. If the debitage assemblage was representative of a base camp, however, then it would be significantly different from the model because Clovis people would have been using, transporting, resharpening, rejuvenating, and recycling the debitage—all activities that would modify a “pure” Clovis bifacial debitage assemblage. Our statistical analyses supported the latter prediction. Overall, our study illustrates how productive the integration of experimental and archaeological data can be, and it emphasizes how important the curation and accessibility of both archaeological and experimental collections are to the discipline.

Collections care practices have become professionalized in the last 30 years, in large part because of the work of organizations such as the American Alliance of Museums, the Canadian Conservation Institute, the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, the American Institute for Conservation, and others in the museum sphere. Advances in preservation and management have benefited the discipline of archaeology in the field and laboratory. This thematic issue provides an updated perspective on the current happenings in the repository, highlighting innovative techniques and practices that collections specialists employ when managing the archaeological record. This article considers a macroview of the issues surrounding archaeological curation today and ponders what the future of collections preservation can and should look like.

Hafting is an important part of lithic technology that can increase our understanding of socioeconomic behavior in the past. In this article, we develop a holistic approach to studying hafting by using the concept of curation within a broader assessment of lithic technological organization in early villages. Early villages were loci of socioeconomic transformation as part of the shift from mobile foraging to more sedentary cultivation lifeways. We suggest that an examination of hafting can provide new insights into how early villagers negotiated technological requirements, economic decision making, and social interactions in these novel contexts. As a case study, we develop a curation index and apply it to an archaeological context of hafted and unhafted pointed tools from the early Neolithic village of Dhra’, Jordan. This curation index allows for a discussion of the technological, economic, and social dimensions of hafting strategies at Dhra’. The presence of multiple hafting traditions within early Neolithic villages of Southwest Asia is evidence of persistent social segmentation despite food storage and ritual practices that emphasized communal integration. Through the lens of lithic technological organization, we demonstrate that hafting and curation patterns can increase our understanding of technological, economic, and social strategies in early villages.

Formally established in the fall of 1947, the Laboratory of Archaeology at the University of Georgia is an archaeological research and collection repository. It is considered one of the premier institutions for curation of archaeological collections from the American Southeast. For over 70 years, the Laboratory has served as a repository for objects and associated records generated from archaeological projects and research undertaken by faculty, students, CRM professionals, and state and federal agencies. The Laboratory curates over 20,000 cubic feet of artifacts as well as paper and digital archives. In addition, the Laboratory houses the Georgia Archaeological Site File and manages data from more than 59,000 archaeological sites, including over 11,500 archaeological reports. In this paper, we explore implementation procedures for bringing legacy collections up to modern curation standards. We also outline how we migrate the data on paper records into the digital realm, articulating them within a comprehensive framework.

Human skeletal remains constitute remarkably informative finds, both biologically and socioculturally. Their recovery, preservation, conservation, storage, and analysis are complex issues that need to be addressed within any given biocultural context. Given the country's geography and the long history of human occupation, Greek field archaeology is intense and ongoing, with both rescue and systematic excavations. Human burials are thus frequently encountered in excavations throughout Greece, resulting in the accumulation of osteological material. Some of the common challenges of bioarchaeological research in Greece consist of insufficient time, funding, and documentation in the field; unmet conservation needs and lack of storage space; as well as the long time-gap between excavation and analysis. Here, we give a brief overview of excavation, curation, and bioarchaeological practice within a Greek archaeological framework. We focus on the newly launched Phaleron Bioarchaeological Project on a vast necropolis from the wider Athens region in order to present our methodological approach. Finally, we consider the role of interdisciplinary collaboration in managing large-scale bioarchaeological projects and serving long-term heritage preservation goals.

The articles in this issue present bioarchaeological case studies from across the globe, including North and Central America, East Asia, Europe, and the Near East. Some bioarchaeology projects are new and others are decades old, but common challenges emerge as researchers apply conservation standards to real situations in the field: a lack of training or resources for long-term curation of human remains, the lag between excavation and analysis of remains, and environmental challenges that include melting permafrost, tropical storms, and a variety of pests such as molds, fungi, bats, snakes, and insects. The studies also address ethical considerations about the use of digital images of human remains, molecular and isotopic methods that require the destruction of human tissue samples, the ability of fast-paced cultural resource management (CRM) projects to address the needs of descendant communities, and the responsibility that we have to the people we study. Techniques for addressing these challenges include new computer programs, more advanced photographic software, and research on the effects of conservation techniques that provide new “standards” for bioarchaeologists. We highlight the importance of each contribution and discuss the future of conservation in bioarchaeology.

Archaeologists strive to understand ancient lifeways, and bioarchaeological data provide honest and immutable evidence of the realities of ancient society in the bodies of the dead. Given the importance of human remains in the archaeological record, a major component of the author's work has been devoted to the ethical responsibilities of bioarchaeologists in the treatment of the collections studied. However, the curation of skeletal remains is often challenging because the conservation and storage of these delicate materials may be afterthoughts in archaeological plans, being inadequately or incorrectly stored and sometimes treated to the same conservation conditions as more robust artifacts and samples. This article offers guidelines and recommendations for skeletal curation based on observations of curation challenges in a large collection in the subtropical Maya region. The collection was not well managed and human remains were not prioritized in the conservation program. The challenges and mitigations are presented here.

Introduction. Plants develop mechanisms that allow them to compartmentalize injuries that they suffer during their life. In trees, pruning and injection treatments must be used in accordance with precise rules to reduce risks resulting from the injuries created. Sealing in palms. Palms, contrary to widespread belief, are quite capable of “healing” injuries (sealing); because of an anatomy quite different from trees, the sealing process in palms is much simpler. Compartmentalization of injection wounds. The controversy on the use of injection in trees is due essentially to initial mistakes that have then been rectified. Injection in palms against the red palm weevil. For palms, for decades, this technique has been employed without problems and with great efficiency against various pests, including Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, the red palm weevil (RPW). Its use has been reserved for exceptional situations either to face abnormal pest proliferation, uncontrollable by other techniques, or to implement eradication programs. Integrated eradication program. In such a program, the main aim of injection treatments is preventive. With long-persistence insecticides, the number of treatments could be greatly reduced. The resulting savings in time and money would enable the organization of the treatments of all the palms located in an infested area, and consequently the rapid eradication of the pest. New perspectives. We established that insecticides applied by injection were capable of protecting palms with only two or even one treatment per year. These results suggest a radical improvement in programs to eradicate RPW, while considerably reducing the risks to health and the environment compared with spray treatments.