The Yellow Jacket Archive: Preservation Planning and Rehousing

FAIN: PG-271705-20

University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO 80303-1058)
Samantha Gallagher Fladd (Project Director: January 2020 to March 2022)

Hiring an archivist to assist the museum in planning for the preservation of and access to archaeological documentation associated with the Yellow Jacket site, part of the Mesa Verde cultural complex located in southwestern Colorado. The site was excavated from 1954-1991 and yielded 300,000 artifacts and 28 linear feet of field notes, maps, plans, and photographs. The museum’s anthropology and archaeology collections are used by academic researchers, teachers and students, and by Native American tribes and descendant communities. The request is in response to “A More Perfect Union,” and would be used to plan for improved access to collections that document the history of cultures in the American. Southwest.

The proposed project requests funding to employ an archivist to develop and implement a processing plan for a collection of original field documentation and research from 21 seasons of archaeological excavations at the Yellow Jacket complex in Southwest Colorado. Over 300,000 artifacts were collected during the field seasons. This vast cultural legacy is underutilized however, due to the state of the associated archival material: papers are stored in binders without hierarchical arrangement and folders bear incomplete or misleading labels. The current storage of the collection is causing papers to slump, tear, or stick to the binders. This project would increase access to the collection by providing an arrangement that meets professional archival standards, improving storage conditions, and paving the way for digitization. These improvements will result in greater interest in the history of this important series of sites occupied by the Mesa Verde branch of Ancestral Puebloan culture.