With National Science Foundation support, the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology will upgrade storage and access to their Gulf of Maine archaeological collection. These materials which include approximately 80,000 artifacts were excavated from sites extending in an arc from maritime Canada to Cape Cod Massachusetts. The Museum was established in 1901 and Warren Moorehead who served as first curator was a major figure in Northeast US archaeology. The earliest collections therefore date to the founding of scientific archaeology in this broad region and they played a central role in the construction of the culture/historic sequence. They have grown significantly and constitute a central corpus of data which is widely consulted. The archaeological materials extend chronologically from the earliest paleoindian cultures of North America to historic times and allow researchers to examine human environmental interactions from early postglacial periods onwards and to address issues such as the causes and social consequences of the shift from a hunting and gathering to a settled village way of life. Because the collections are poorly curated, are stored in a non-systematic fashion and are unevenly catalogued, they are extremely difficult for researchers to use. With NSF support the museum will conduct a series of activities. Collections will be sorted by material type and stored by geographic region. They will be reboxed and organic and fragile objects such as bone, shell, textile and animal and plant remains will be buffered from acidic drawer surfaces. Structural supports will be produced for objects which need them. Collection records will be verified against objects, updated and then input into a computerized data system. The project will result in a well conserved, organized and readily available collection for scientific research.
