CRM professionals have ethical, legal, and contractual obligations to curate the materials recovered during investigations. Curation of artifacts and project records at a qualified museum or repository ensures the long-term preservation of these materials and makes them accessible for research and public education.

Despite the importance of professional curation, archaeological repositories often encounter CRM projects in which the curation process was delayed, neglected, and/or under-funded due to a lack of knowledge and poor planning for curation requirements. Instead, CRM professionals can better meet their ethical, legal, and contractual obligations to curate by considering curation preparation during all stages of a CRM project.

This 1.5 hour course offers an introduction to the principles of curation for CRM professionals from the perspective of a certified archaeological repository. The learning objectives of this course are:

To understand the ethical and legal importance of curation for CRM projects
To introduce the types of curation facilities available to CRM professionals
To provide guidance for curation planning and budgeting
To provide an overview of the curation process
To review common curation submittal requirements at a sampling of facilities across the US
To introduce the principles of artifact and records preservation, including common types of archival-grade storage materials and labeling methods