With support from the National Science Foundation, the Arizona State University (ASU) Department of Anthropology will curate major parts of their archaeology and physical anthropology collections. The overall holdings, of which these materials form a significant part include over 2,000,000 specimens with associated archival records and together these comprise one of the largest in the American Southwest. At the present time, these materials are difficult to use because they are not fully catalogued and individual items are therefore difficult to locate. Storage conditions are less than optimal and this results in risk to the objects themselves. To address these problems, most of the archaeological collections as well as a large series of dental casts will be inventoried. The information will be entered into a computerized index. Archival paper records will be preserved and storage cabinets and containers will be purchased to preserve the objects. The ASU collections are of great anthropological significance and an important source of research data. The archaeological materials included in the project derive primarily from the Southwest and the majority were excavated from ca. 900 sites in central Arizona. This was the prehistoric core area of Hohokam culture. Within this region, numerous towns, hamlets, and individual farmsteads constituted one of the densest areas of human settlement in prehistoric North America and are associated with one of the most extensive prehistoric irrigation systems known. The dental materials which are included in this conservation project include over 15,000 casts of human dentition and represent about 11,000 individuals. In many instances multiple casts were taken over the lifetimes of single individuals and information about biological relationships among individuals is available. These materials provide an ideal base for longitudinal studies of dental development, wear, attrition and disease often among members of a single genetically related population. This project is important both because it will help to preserve valuable scientific data and also because it will make this information more readily accessible to the scientific community.
