This year’s OSG luncheon featured 2 archaeological-focused talks, each sprinkled with pop-culture references.
Vanessa Muros spoke first-a presentation titled “Holy Mammoth Batman! Conservation Education and Outreach for the Preservation of a Columbian Mammoth,” which was co-authored by Allison Lewis.
This presentation addressed the issues and challenges of training archaeologists in conservation techniques, and covered some of the outcomes-both good and bad-of such a collaboration. In the fall of 2010, Vanessa and Allison were contacted by archaeologists from Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, CA to advise them on the excavation of the fragile remains of a Columbian Mammoth. This was an unanticipated find and the archaeologists had no money to hire conservators and Allison and Vanessa had very limited time (or perhaps desire since they would be working for free) to spend in the field.
The solution that Vanessa and Allison devised was to act as consultants and to go out into the field to assess the condition of the remains and the possible treatment options, to devise protocols for safely lifting the mammoth remains and to train students working on the project to carry out this work themselves. After speaking to the archaeologists about possible analysis of the remains and ensuring that all sampling had been carried out, they devised protocols that involved consolidation of the bone and ivory remains in situ with Acrysol WS24, facing with cyclododecane, and block-lifting.
Vanessa took several block-lifted items back to the UCLA/Getty Conservation Program training labs at the Getty Villa, and, along with the graduate students, devised protocols for further stabilization of the excavated pieces using Acryloid B-72 for the dry bone and Acrysol WS24 for the bone that was still damp. Packing and storage solutions were also devised in consultation with Foothill College so that they could be replicated by archaeology students for the rest of the excavated material back at Foothill.
In the end, Vanessa and Allison deemed the collaboration a success-they felt that the archaeology students learned about conservation techniques, materials and proper storage, and the mammoth remains were safely lifted and stored. They also felt that they had promoted conservation and demonstrated the skills and knowledge required to be a conservator. Despite these great outcomes, they also saw several potential issues, including the fact that the project director, in the project’s Flickr photo album, labeled photos of archaeology students as “conservators.” Did the project director understand that his students aren’t conservators? Had they undermined our profession by demonstrating that non-conservators can do this work, and by teaching non-conservators irreversible and challenging treatments? Had they devalued conservation by volunteering to do all of this?
For being a potentially controversial topic, there were surprisingly no questions or objections about any of this by anyone in the audience. Personally, I think that this project is good for conservation- instead of trying to do the work themselves, the archaeologists contacted Vanessa and Allison, which I believe is an acknowledgement of the expertise and skills of conservators. And I think that while Vanessa and Allison trained students to carry out conservation methods, they did it in a way so that those students do NOT feel like they are conservators (even if the dig director may not fully understand). I also believe that these archaeology students will probably be even more likely to contact a conservator in the future, since this appeared to be a very positive collaboration. What I’d like to see, however, is archaeologists involving conservators like Allison and Vanessa from the beginning of projects. I know that there are always unexpected finds, but if conservators are involved from the beginning, there will hopefully be funding and time to carry out such work in the case that conservation is needed. Projects like this demonstrate the important relationship-building necessary for this collaborative work to take place.