William and Mary Department of Anthropology
Background
The William and Mary Department of Anthropology acknowledges the importance of
objects in anthropological studies. Few anthropologists can fail to pay attention to
material things, and material culture and material science play especially fundamental
roles in biological anthropology and archaeology. Examination, comparison and
documentation of objects are essential steps in many anthropological studies, and
nothing in this policy is meant to impede or discourage such use of physical objects.
However, increasing pressures of funding and space require the department to admit
that it cannot remain the curator of record of large numbers of objects. Of these, space
is by far the greatest constraint. Any additional space obtained by the Department
should rightly go to graduate student needs, faculty offices, and specialized work
spaces.
In addition, changing sensibilities about the status and meaning of collected materials
and about ethnic heritage and the inalienability of certain classes of objects have put
those who curate large anthropological collections as traditionally constructed into a
variety of delicate and difficult positions. Both these general uncertainties as well as still
developing and very precise legal liabilities make many aspects of maintaining such
collections problematic.
The Department currently is responsible for many thousands of objects, but in a variety
of ways.
The Department’s ‘Permanent Collection’, begun by Dr. Altshuler immediately upon the
establishment of the Department, currently contains about 3000 objects. Many are
contemporary traditional handicrafts of various kinds collected by Dr. Altschuler in the
period 1965-1990; others are donations, chiefly of North American material, both
contemporary and archaeological. Over 300 objects are from two collections made in
West Africa in the period 1925-1955. An important collection of Andean textiles and
textile producing tools apparently ‘legally’ but quite plausibly ‘unethically’ removed from
archaeological contexts was donated in 1998 by another department of the College.
Despite some such examples, the permanent collection is comprised of objects to which
the Department has the best claim to complete legal ownership. Objects curated by but
not owned by the Department, such as those belonging to the Muscarelle Museum or to
Richard and Sally Price, are unambiguously distinguished from those to which the
Department has clear title.
However, most of the individual objects which the Department collectively curates are
the result of archaeological excavations, and these have always remained under the
primary purview of their excavators or those who are responsible for their
documentation and analysis (typically, these are one and the same person). Many of
these artifacts and ecofacts were excavated under grants from various sources, and
those grantors may have specific legal or contractual interests in standards of curation;
some, but not most agencies, will expect the return of the objects at some point. Some
of these excavated objects are the legal property of other entities, for instance the
government of the Netherlands Antilles or various landowners, and agreements and
understandings about who is responsible for what, in terms of curation, as well as who
owns what, in legal terms, are frequently ambiguous.
There are a variety of ways other than formal ‘collecting’ by which the Department can
become associated with specific groups of objects, but they typically have in common a
relationship with the research of particular faculty members. Recent and upcoming
retirements have brought the disposition of some of this material into question. It is clear
that the best time to exercise control over the Department’s responsibility for objects is
when groups of objects are first acquired, whether as the result of collection or
excavation or as subjects for analysis in the context of faculty research.
The essence of the proposed policies is that, before assuming responsibility for any
object or group of objects, clear and appropriately documented agreements be made as
to who owns every object, what the curatorial responsibilities of the Department towards
that object shall be, and who will ultimately house and maintain it when processing and
analysis or other research are concluded.
A working example of this is provided by WMCAR, which has excavated, documented
and analysed on some scale many tens of thousands of artifacts and yet which curates
only a few thousand objects at anyone time. (This WMCAR material is another example
of one of the Department’s diffuse and scattered holdings. WMCAR‘s excavated
materials belong, under many and various contracts, either to the funding agency or to
individual landowners. WMCAR keeps the material only long enough to document and
analyze it, and eventually most of it is passed on to the ultimate curator, the
Commonwealth. The costs of processing the material and preparing it to meet the
Commonwealth’s curation requirements are built into each contract.
Excavated materials have the advantage that there exists a network of regional curation
facilities, usually focused upon a particular state or region, who will accept excavated
materials for long-term curation – the term ‘perpetual’ has been bandied about,
questioned and, in some cases, retracted. There is a (usually) one-time fee, ranging
from $75.00 to $300.00 per standard archival (‘Hollinger’) box of material, but additional
costs are imposed by standards which each regional curation facility specifies –
requirements ranging from the level of documentation required to the quality of storage
bags and boxes to the specific format and acid-free nature of labeling tags and
summary documents.
It will be possible, therefore, given the proper financial resources, for the Department to
eventually remit some of the excavated materials under its care to the local regional
curation facility, in Richmond, at a cost of $75.00 per box plus the costs and materials
necessary to prepare materials for curation.
Proposed Collection Policy
1
Donations and purchases of material for the Department’s Permanent Collection
shall be vetted and evaluated by the Department teaching faculty. Relevance to
the Department’s educational goals, clarity of title, and the Department’s ability to
store and curate the proposed additions shall guide the faculty in this evaluation.
2
The disposition of materials related to the research activities of individual faculty,
staff or students should be included in the agreements, contracts or grants which
enable or fund the research activity.
Ultimate ownership of any research material should be specified, and if
such ownership will fall to the Department, the involved faculty member
should coordinate such potential ownership with the Department Chair
and the Collections Committee.
Curatorial standards, as appropriate, should also be addressed in
formulating or negotiating these documents, with any interim or final
curation for which the Department shall be responsible, in the case of
materials which ultimately belong to some other agency, indicated as
necessary.
Whether or not title will accrue to the Department, any such agreement,
contract or grant should include a plausible and adequate budget line for
curating resources. These may be no different from normal and expected
processing budgets, but attention should be paid to any requirements
which may be imposed by the owner of record upon return of these items.
3
This policy acknowledges that the scale of materials recovered or collected for
research may not be known exactly at the time of a project’s inception; but in
situations which are open-ended, both the most likely scale of collection and the
resources necessary to curate that level of collection should be addressed
insofar as is possible in negotiating the terms and the budgets of any collection
generating agreements, contracts, or grants.