Last updated: March 19, 2024
Article
Podcast 149: Too Much Stuff
A Fascination with Collections
Photo courtesy of Sadie Whitehurst
Tad Britt: Hey, y'all. My name is Tad Britt. I work for the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training as the chief of archeology, and welcome to our podcast.
Dr. Peter Bleed: I'm Peter Bleed. I'm a retired professor of anthropology from the University of Nebraska. Spent my whole career teaching at the University of Nebraska, but moved down here to Arkansas to be closer to my grandchildren. I'm still an archeologist and still really interested in the work and the activities of archeology.
Sadie Whitehurst: Thank you so much for talking with us today, Peter. You've got lots of really interesting ideas of how to continue improving our field and looking back at the way we do things and improving certain aspects of our day-to-day lives as archeologists, such as collections management and curation, and that's what has started this conversation today. I know you have a lot of experience and thoughts to share with us. Is collections management important in modern archeology and what are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Peter Bleed: I'm really interested in collecting. Most people assume I'm a collector, and certainly, I have accumulated a lot of stuff, but I'm interested in the behavior of collecting. As an archeologist, of course, I also was actively involved in making archeological collections. I was kind of a square-hole archeologist, teaching field schools and doing research with contracts and grants that involved excavation. As a part of that, I was always involved in teaching archeology. In teaching those crafts, we had to teach and practice collections management. As I look back on it, I think archeologists were more interested in making collections than in keeping collections.
Now we've got a whole bunch of collections and we've got to treat responsibly that we've got to make use of and that we've got to decide what to do. I'm also really interested in the activity that lots of people, I'd say most people have collections of stuff that they maintain, even though people will say, I'm not a collector, an awful lot of people do have big collections of interesting stuff. With the generation change, I think we should think about what's going to happen to those collections. I'd like to encourage discussions of how and why we collect and what we're going to do with all this stuff we have.
Sadie Whitehurst: I think that's super important moving forward. Those are some interesting observations and they're quite plain, but it's not something we think about as we go along, and it's an interesting perspective.
Dr. Peter Bleed: It tends to be the case that archeologists gather materials, curate it, clean it up, put it in bags, do the immediate collections management, but then it's turned over to collections managers. There tends to be a divide or I wonder if there is a consistent divide between collections managers and archeological researchers. That divide is I think, is unhealthy. I think we should find ways of making use of or dealing with the collections we've made. Those decisions of dealing with the collection should involve both archeologists, people who are doing research and who are using the material reflections of behavior as a source of information about the past. But also, the practical decisions of what are we going to do with all this stuff and if we keep collecting, can we do that responsibly and who's going to make those decisions? I think archeologists had in both collections management and in data gathering how to give great thought. Certainly, the folks at NCPTT are actively involved in thinking about what are we going to do with and how should we treat our collections.
Sadie Whitehurst: You mentioned who's dealing with the collections, but now you've mentioned the treatment of them, and that's an interesting aspect too.
Types of Collections
Dr. Peter Bleed: We've got two kinds of collections that I'm interested in, archeological collection, stuff that consists of all the material that we have systematically recovered as a record of the past, and then we've got private collections. In terms of the research collections, we are pretty proud of how we collect things and documenting the standards we use to make this collection. Once it's in the box and once it's put on the shelf, we've got to remember that we've got to drive what we're going to do with that stuff.
Putting it on the shelf is not the goal. The goal is using this material as a source of information about human history.
Sadie Whitehurst: Now I'm thinking we're really diving into this discussion, but I wonder if we should maybe mention what a collection might consist of for someone who's not familiar with archeology or anthropology.
Dr. Peter Bleed: We should talk about what a collection might consist of for archeologists. We've got huge amounts of material that we systematically and responsibly collected, but are we really working hard on figuring out what to do with it? Are we building theory on fire-cracked rock and lots of very bulky material? Or if the challenge of collection, what are we going to do with all these collections comes up? Can we responsibly say this doesn't need to be kept? I'm not comfortable having asked that, I've said that. Those are discussions that I think we've got to be involved in and either we've got to take the responsibility making use of these collections or we've got to have active cogent reasons for keeping them, or we've got to let other people say we can't keep it all.
Sadie Whitehurst: Because behind every paper is every method and every artifact looked at is a box on a shelf somewhere, and that's heavy to think about.
Putting it on the shelf is not the goal. The goal is using this material as a source of information about human history.
Sadie Whitehurst: Now I'm thinking we're really diving into this discussion, but I wonder if we should maybe mention what a collection might consist of for someone who's not familiar with archeology or anthropology.
Dr. Peter Bleed: We should talk about what a collection might consist of for archeologists. We've got huge amounts of material that we systematically and responsibly collected, but are we really working hard on figuring out what to do with it? Are we building theory on fire-cracked rock and lots of very bulky material? Or if the challenge of collection, what are we going to do with all these collections comes up? Can we responsibly say this doesn't need to be kept? I'm not comfortable having asked that, I've said that. Those are discussions that I think we've got to be involved in and either we've got to take the responsibility making use of these collections or we've got to have active cogent reasons for keeping them, or we've got to let other people say we can't keep it all.
Sadie Whitehurst: Because behind every paper is every method and every artifact looked at is a box on a shelf somewhere, and that's heavy to think about.
What do we do with Collections?
Dr. Peter Bleed: I'd say I'd go a step farther. For everything we look at, there's a whole bunch of stuff we look at and don't do anything. We've got to actively decide how we are going to treat these materials. I think there tends to be a divide in the profession. We've got to ask the question, how central to modern archeology is collections management? Are the collections managers, curators and collections managers, leading the field? Are they working with? Are they archeologists who are covering the whole front of modern archeology or are they separated from the folks who are doing archeology as opposed to the people? Is there a separation between the people who are doing "archeology" and the people who are collections managers? When I was teaching archeology, we dig, every dig, and then you've got some time in the lab and everybody had to do it. I'm not sure that after the field work is done that the integration between collections and research is positive and effective, or I want to make sure that all of that is archeology and that all of it is supported and encouraged and active.
Tad Britt: What do you think of the role of archeologists communicating with private collectors who don't necessarily have a degree in archeology or cultural resource management and how should we move forward in our discussions with private collectors?Dr.
Peter Bleed: Private collecting, I think is really an important part of what archeology and the modern generation of archeologists ought to be dealing with. There are people who collect lots of the things that archeologists are interested in, but then there are a whole bunch of other collectors who have good collections that they have built and that they're getting old, you have to ask what's going to happen to those. You've got stone tool collectors and collectors of a whole lot of other things. Archeologists, I think should pay attention to all of that collecting. Now, in terms of archeological collections, the handshake, the intellectual linkage between archeologists and collectors who collect stone tools and other archeological material has been complex. We have a great deal to learn from archeological collectors, stone tool collectors. They can find much more than we can find. They have access to a great deal and they are really, really, really expert.
Question we've got, and I think this is the question you raised, Tad, what is our responsibility? What can we do with and for them? Now, I want at some point, maybe in a future conversation, we can talk about all those other collectors who have got great huge swaths of American cultural patrimony. We can talk about that private collective. Let's talk about the stone tool and the archeological collective. I think it's fair to say, well, how much material can archeology, institutional and professional sense, how much stuff can we accept? We can't accept it all. We simply can't have it all.
Furthermore, we've got to decide what we would do with it, what we can ask and address with it that are worth asking and that are possibly better or worse what the nonprofessional collectors bring to their interest. Finding that, making that an exciting intellectual activity is pretty exciting to me. What's going to happen to all those collections? I think the reality is we're getting ready for a generation shift. The baby boom has passed. Those of us who are pre-baby boom are certainly leading the passing, but what's going to happen to all of those collections? Everything cannot be tunneled into and sent into institutional collections, or maybe it can. Everything will get collected. If that's the case, the world will just be full of these huge collections, and the job of archeology will be to make use of those collections to find ways of treating them as a source of information about the human and the world past.
Sadie Whitehurst: You mentioned cultural patrimony, and I wonder if you could touch on a bit more of what that actually is and what that means for collections management.
Dr. Peter Bleed: We dirt archeologists tend to treat the collections we bring home as a record of what is a documented record, a source of information about some past behavior that involved material culture. That's called archeology. We believe that the material record of behavior really does matter. We can call it, I'd like to hang the word cultural patrimony on stuff, because it's our stuff, it's our record. It is our documentation of what we've done and achieved. Now, it's not the only one. We've got recordings and documents of various kinds, but the material stuff of our lives is an important document. What has happened? It's what we can also bring forward is patrimony in the future.
What's going to happen to all these collections that are made if somebody wants to know cameras or all of the things that people can collect, all the people who collect antique weaponry of one sort and another? All of that is a document for the human past. I think we should say, is it our patrimony? Is it something that documents what we as humans or Americans or Midwesterners or Southerners have done and achieved? Is it a document of our activities, make it our patrimony or not? If we say yes, then we've got to say, what is our responsibility as archeologists to the treatment of this stuff? Even if it's not in our collection, even if it's in collections of private individuals, what are we going to do?
Tad Britt: What do you think of the role of archeologists communicating with private collectors who don't necessarily have a degree in archeology or cultural resource management and how should we move forward in our discussions with private collectors?Dr.
Peter Bleed: Private collecting, I think is really an important part of what archeology and the modern generation of archeologists ought to be dealing with. There are people who collect lots of the things that archeologists are interested in, but then there are a whole bunch of other collectors who have good collections that they have built and that they're getting old, you have to ask what's going to happen to those. You've got stone tool collectors and collectors of a whole lot of other things. Archeologists, I think should pay attention to all of that collecting. Now, in terms of archeological collections, the handshake, the intellectual linkage between archeologists and collectors who collect stone tools and other archeological material has been complex. We have a great deal to learn from archeological collectors, stone tool collectors. They can find much more than we can find. They have access to a great deal and they are really, really, really expert.
Question we've got, and I think this is the question you raised, Tad, what is our responsibility? What can we do with and for them? Now, I want at some point, maybe in a future conversation, we can talk about all those other collectors who have got great huge swaths of American cultural patrimony. We can talk about that private collective. Let's talk about the stone tool and the archeological collective. I think it's fair to say, well, how much material can archeology, institutional and professional sense, how much stuff can we accept? We can't accept it all. We simply can't have it all.
Furthermore, we've got to decide what we would do with it, what we can ask and address with it that are worth asking and that are possibly better or worse what the nonprofessional collectors bring to their interest. Finding that, making that an exciting intellectual activity is pretty exciting to me. What's going to happen to all those collections? I think the reality is we're getting ready for a generation shift. The baby boom has passed. Those of us who are pre-baby boom are certainly leading the passing, but what's going to happen to all of those collections? Everything cannot be tunneled into and sent into institutional collections, or maybe it can. Everything will get collected. If that's the case, the world will just be full of these huge collections, and the job of archeology will be to make use of those collections to find ways of treating them as a source of information about the human and the world past.
Sadie Whitehurst: You mentioned cultural patrimony, and I wonder if you could touch on a bit more of what that actually is and what that means for collections management.
Dr. Peter Bleed: We dirt archeologists tend to treat the collections we bring home as a record of what is a documented record, a source of information about some past behavior that involved material culture. That's called archeology. We believe that the material record of behavior really does matter. We can call it, I'd like to hang the word cultural patrimony on stuff, because it's our stuff, it's our record. It is our documentation of what we've done and achieved. Now, it's not the only one. We've got recordings and documents of various kinds, but the material stuff of our lives is an important document. What has happened? It's what we can also bring forward is patrimony in the future.
What's going to happen to all these collections that are made if somebody wants to know cameras or all of the things that people can collect, all the people who collect antique weaponry of one sort and another? All of that is a document for the human past. I think we should say, is it our patrimony? Is it something that documents what we as humans or Americans or Midwesterners or Southerners have done and achieved? Is it a document of our activities, make it our patrimony or not? If we say yes, then we've got to say, what is our responsibility as archeologists to the treatment of this stuff? Even if it's not in our collection, even if it's in collections of private individuals, what are we going to do?
A Challenge to the Field
Sadie Whitehurst: Well, do you see any aspects of collecting and curation that are going to require more research, more advanced methods or preservation technologies apply to them that we can improve upon?
Dr. Peter Bleed: I think that passing the generation, the now retiring generation of archeologists has been very interested in cultural preservation and in the maintenance of the archeological record. In that sense, I think that the collections that have been formed by a great many people, constitute a fragile record that needs to be assessed and documented and appreciated. That I think cultural preservation should spend a little time thinking about what's going to happen to all of the collections that have been made by private collectors, and what is our responsibility as cultural preservationists to documentation, assessment, and preservation of those collections. The other thing that I think is really pretty interesting and is worth thinking about is collecting engagement, engaging communities in our collections. I think the best thing arguably—hasn’t always been easy—but the best thing that's happened to archeological collections over the past generation has been the engagement with native communities in terms of why, how, and what should happen to the collections of native communities in order to address those issues.
Archeologists have had to and have been able to engage in conversation with native community. Those engagements haven’t always been easy, sometimes have been absolutely difficult. They've been really vital. They've made collections management much better than it used to be. It's actively involved. I think that if we take that engagement model, we can certainly meet the needs, speak to the needs of native communities and ancestral cultures with our collections. If we take that same approach and look at collections and we realize that collecting is something that great many people do, and we, as professionals, might find ways of engaging with collectors and discover a great deal about the "wonderful treasures" that people have accumulated. The patrimonial impact that those materials present, engaging with collectors could well be, I think, a way of bringing cultural preservation into the next generation.
Sadie Whitehurst: Engagement is a huge part of that.
Dr. Peter Bleed: I think the engagement with ancestral and descendant communities is really wonderful. It hasn't always been easy and we've had to learn a great deal in order to do it effectively, but it's been extremely positive. Archeology, curation, museums, all got better as a result of it. Now, if we turn that around and we look at all of the other stuff that's out there that people "collect", can we find ways of working with them, learning from them, and looking at their materials at those collections to make our collections, collecting more effective and to also speak to the needs of huge swaths of society?
Sadie Whitehurst: Well, Peter, how we can continue engaging with you and your work?
Dr. Peter Bleed: Oh, for heaven's sakes, I'm of a passing generation, Sadie. The question you should ask is what can you do? What can you all do to help the emergent generation of archeological leaders and collections managers speak to the needs of all the material culture that is out there and is being handled in potentially significant ways to archeology, to museums and collections facilities?
Sadie Whitehurst: Excellent. You're right. I think you're leaving us in good hands and I hope we can continue to do your work justice. I really thank you for having this conversation with us today.
Dr. Peter Bleed: Yeah, I enjoyed the conversation.
Dr. Peter Bleed: I think that passing the generation, the now retiring generation of archeologists has been very interested in cultural preservation and in the maintenance of the archeological record. In that sense, I think that the collections that have been formed by a great many people, constitute a fragile record that needs to be assessed and documented and appreciated. That I think cultural preservation should spend a little time thinking about what's going to happen to all of the collections that have been made by private collectors, and what is our responsibility as cultural preservationists to documentation, assessment, and preservation of those collections. The other thing that I think is really pretty interesting and is worth thinking about is collecting engagement, engaging communities in our collections. I think the best thing arguably—hasn’t always been easy—but the best thing that's happened to archeological collections over the past generation has been the engagement with native communities in terms of why, how, and what should happen to the collections of native communities in order to address those issues.
Archeologists have had to and have been able to engage in conversation with native community. Those engagements haven’t always been easy, sometimes have been absolutely difficult. They've been really vital. They've made collections management much better than it used to be. It's actively involved. I think that if we take that engagement model, we can certainly meet the needs, speak to the needs of native communities and ancestral cultures with our collections. If we take that same approach and look at collections and we realize that collecting is something that great many people do, and we, as professionals, might find ways of engaging with collectors and discover a great deal about the "wonderful treasures" that people have accumulated. The patrimonial impact that those materials present, engaging with collectors could well be, I think, a way of bringing cultural preservation into the next generation.
Sadie Whitehurst: Engagement is a huge part of that.
Dr. Peter Bleed: I think the engagement with ancestral and descendant communities is really wonderful. It hasn't always been easy and we've had to learn a great deal in order to do it effectively, but it's been extremely positive. Archeology, curation, museums, all got better as a result of it. Now, if we turn that around and we look at all of the other stuff that's out there that people "collect", can we find ways of working with them, learning from them, and looking at their materials at those collections to make our collections, collecting more effective and to also speak to the needs of huge swaths of society?
Sadie Whitehurst: Well, Peter, how we can continue engaging with you and your work?
Dr. Peter Bleed: Oh, for heaven's sakes, I'm of a passing generation, Sadie. The question you should ask is what can you do? What can you all do to help the emergent generation of archeological leaders and collections managers speak to the needs of all the material culture that is out there and is being handled in potentially significant ways to archeology, to museums and collections facilities?
Sadie Whitehurst: Excellent. You're right. I think you're leaving us in good hands and I hope we can continue to do your work justice. I really thank you for having this conversation with us today.
Dr. Peter Bleed: Yeah, I enjoyed the conversation.
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