Author: Mati Castillo
This past summer I was lucky enough to work at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s offsite collection facility, the Edward O’Neil Research Center. This is where the archaeology, ethnographic, and mammal collections are housed and even amongst the Carnegie staff it’s considered somewhat of a mystery as only the collection managers of these sections and occasionally the conservator have cause to be here. I have been very fortunate to spend the last 12 weeks here amongst all the artifacts and collections where I got to curate the 2006 Johnston Site archaeological collection under the supervision of Amy Covell-Murthy, Archeology Collection Manager and Head of the Section of Anthropology.
The excavation and curation of the Johnston site is an ongoing project that started long before me and will continue long after. The site was initially excavated in 2006 and further excavation was conducted by Indiana University of Pennsylvania anthropology students and staff in 2008, 2010, and 2012. A previous intern started the curation of the 2006 collection (completing one box of ceramics) and over the course of my internship I and another intern managed to complete it; we’ve also managed to complete the labeling and organizing of one box of faunal remains in the 2008 collection, but it will be up to whoever comes after us to complete the other 20 boxes from the 2008 field season. Each field season produced hundreds if not thousands of archaeological (prior to colonization) artifacts such as lithics, ceramics, and faunal remains along with historical (after colonization) artifacts including glazed ceramics, brick, and glass. It was my job to sort through every bag matching its contents to the artifact catalog and labeling the artifacts with their proper accession number. This was simultaneously the most fun and most difficult part of the project.
Sorting through all the faunal remains was incredible; the river shells were gorgeous and the polished turtle shell bowl fragments were incredible to handle. Handling projectile points gave me such an appreciation for the craftsmanship and skill that goes into creating tools and examining the ceramic sherds is exhilarating when I remembered that it survived thousands of years between when it was made and when I got to hold it in my hands. There were so many incredible artifacts to sort through but there were also plenty of mistakes and questions to navigate. These artifacts were excavated 17 years ago so there were quite a few missing details and mix-ups as was to be expected. There were entire bags worth of artifacts that were not listed in the catalog, material that was marked as discarded was still present, bags with no provenance information, and plenty of mislabeled artifacts. I found plenty of bags where bones were mislabeled as cinder or wood and some shale labeled as lithic flakes; these are easy mistakes to make and the only reason I noticed the errors was because of my previous excavation experience. With the help of Dr. Sarah Neusius, who directed the IUP field school, and CMNH Anthropology Collection Manager Kristina Gaugler, whose dissertation was on the Johnston site, we were able to find solutions to these issues. After labeling all of the artifacts, all there was left to do was build boxes to store them and place them in a cabinet for safe keeping until some researcher comes along to study them.
The bulk of my summer was dedicated to the 2006 Johnston collection, but I had plenty of other little projects that I worked on. I helped research decolonial initiatives in museums not just in the US but around the world in countries ranging from Germany to New Zealand. I also got to help research policy and prepare materials for NAGPRA related projects. While these tasks were not as large scale as the curation of the Johnston collection, they’re the projects that I am most excited about. How museums portray cultures other than their own Euro-American heritage is what first interested me in this work so being able to work with a supervisor that so passionately and unapologetically cares about ethics, equity, repatriation, and decolonization has given me so much hope regarding the future of museums.
Mati Castillo was a Fine Foundation Summer Fellow at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 2023