Department of Defense and US Army Corps of Engineers Curation Options Project, Eastern States

This report examines various options for the curation of archaeological materials that are stewarded by the Department of Defense (DoD). Archaeological materials have been generated by over 50 years of archaeological investigations required by law, and many collections have been gathered from lands held by the DoD and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).
Adequate curation of these collections is mandated by federal regulations, most importantly 36 CFR Part 79—Curation of Federally-Owned and Administered Archaeological Collections. Previously, funding had not been allocated for the proper curation of these materials. As a result, most collections have not received adequate long-term care. The DoD and USACE funded this project to seek a solution to this nationwide problem.
Museums, universities, and state-funded institutions already have facilities in place to curate archaeological collections. Rather than duplicate efforts, such institutions were sought out for potential partnership with DoD and USACE. The mission was to identfy potential partners, evaluate their capabilities to manage the archaeological collections, and to collect baseline administrative information associated with such an endeavor. The results for the eastern U.S. are presented here. A previous report presents results of institutions in the western half of the U.S.