A Fresh Start: Reboxing a Collection

My name is Katie Anderson and I am one of the two summer students working for the Ontario Archaeology Society this summer. I graduated this month from Wilfrid Laurier University with a bachelors degree in North American Archaeology. In the fall I will be attending the University of York in England taking a Masters in Historical Archaeology.

This summer my project is working on the Charles Garrad collection. This collection is made up of the assembled material that Garrad has excavated and collected over his career. The collection is made of Petun artifacts. The main goal of the project is to organize the collection, and the long-term goal is to transfer the collection to a museum, as the quality of the collections, and their significance to Ontario, is well-deserving of a permanent place that would benefit the pubic immensely. Garrad has been instrumental over the years in providing this material to researchers, and we want to help continue making these collections accessible, as there is much potential for future research.

The collections are in excellent condition with the provenience information intact. The main focus of the project is updating the material to reflect current archival standards, including the use of non-gassing polyethylene bags. We are going through each site and removing the artifacts from their current means of storage and then putting them into new bags. As we are going through the collections we are also separating out the unique and interesting artifacts and photographing them so we have a record of the material that is easily accessible.

I am really looking forward to carrying out this project this summer and can’t wait to see what else I will encounter and learn as I progress further into the collection.

–       Katie Anderson