Digitizing The Anasazi Origins Project: A Geodatabase

Archaeology is faced with the inheritance problem of managing legacy collections,
partly due to the high expense of maintaining them. Often these datasets are unorganized, thus rendering them underutilized, and difficult to properly preserve or to integrate into the current archaeological dialogue. Unfortunately, this problem is a common issue. To address this problem, an examination of the condition of the records and artifacts of legacy archaeological collections is needed.

In this thesis, recursive archaeology and living documents will be used as guiding principles for a research design to integrate the Anasazi Origins Project (AOP) Legacy Archaeological Collection into the current archaeological dialogue using electronic databases such as a geodatabase. Furthermore, PDFs of the site records and inventory sheet for notes as well as shapefiles of the site locations will be submitted to the Archaeological Records Management Section to integrate into their online electronic database, the New Mexico Cultural Resources Information System. Traditional and digital preservation methods will be used and presented to construct a conceptual frame of reference for similar types of legacy archaeological collections. This research is an effort to fulfill the ethical obligations of Cynthia Irwin-Williams to preserve and disseminate the dataset that helped to define the Archaic northern Southwest of the United States, the Oshara Tradition.