Indiana Jones: Myth, Reality And 21st Century Archaeology

An important part of archaeology is recording the context materials are excavated from. Sometimes collections get disorganized or lost after a project concludes and become unusable to researchers due to the lack of contextual information. Dr. Barbara Voss’ research has addressed this issue of collections getting left on the proverbial doorstep and begun to outline potential practices to find homes for “orphaned collections”. Since the early 2000s Dr. Voss has adopted the Market Street Chinatown Project and has dedicated time to figuring out ways to make that site and collection useful to researchers once again. Her work in giving the collection a home has enabled her and others to address questions about the daily life, such as food consumption, and social roles of Chinese immigrants in California. Join us as we talk about the significance of the collection itself and importance of addressing orphaned archaeological collections.