The Burke Museum began acquiring collections in the late 1800s. In the early days, little thought was given to provenience (where artifacts originally came from), but that has changed with time. As the discipline of Archaeology grew and became more scientific, provenience information for artifacts became more specific. Some of the first artifacts donated are simply identified as coming from “Washington State”, but other later artifacts we can pinpoint to within an inch of their original location. Stone, bone, wood, ivory, ceramic and other types of material, including linen from a mummy, are all found here. Finally, where are the objects from? Artifacts from as close as the UW campus to as far away as Egypt are curated here.

Although most people think of collections as objects from the same geographical area, museums often identify collections by the donor’s name. Here are a few examples of collections created by private individuals, early archaeologists and professional archaeologists. You will probably notice, though, that most of the individuals focused on specific regions of Washington and the world.

• The Bergen Collection features Columbia Plateau artifacts
• The Stewart Collection of Lower Columbia River artifacts
• The Hall Collection of Columbia River artifacts
• The Putnam Collection of Alaskan and Canadian artifacts
• The Cole Collection of artifacts from Papua New Guinea

Not all collections at the Burke Museum are owned by the State of Washington. The Archaeology Department also curates collections for government agencies (federal to city) and Native American Tribes. Since the collections are owned by another party, but managed by the Burke Museum, we call them held-in-trust collections. Though some collections have access restrictions, most are managed to allow full research access to interested parties. The Port of Seattle, Army Corps of Engineers, Puyallup Tribe of Indians and many others store collections here, either temporarily or long-term.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage, Alaska curates several small collections from the Aleutian Islands at the Burke Museum. Unlike some collections that came to the museum from the agency, some of these collections have been at the Burke Museum over 60 years. In 2002, it came to our attention that over 200 objects curated at the Burke Museum were collected illegally from islands under the jurisdiction of the USFWS. As such, the artifacts are owned by the federal government and all people of the United States, not just those in the State of Washington. The USFWS funded the rehousing and cataloging of the collections, making it more accessible to interested researchers.

• The National Park Service San Juan Collection is an example of a held-in-trust collection.

All of our one million artifacts and thousands of related documents, photographs, and maps, require cataloging and curation. Curation involves storing artifacts and archives using conservation-quality products , cataloging them in a computerized database and monitoring the artifacts and storage enviroment over time. Cataloging entails measuring and describing each artifact, which takes time. We are currently in the process of cataloging our collections to make access easier for staff and researchers.

With 1,000,000+ artifacts, it will take a long time to catalog everything. Since we began entering objects into our current electronic database in 1990, we have cataloged 30,600 objects. We prioritize our cataloging effort based on several issues, including the likelihood that a given collection will be researched or exhibited.

This ongoing preservation of the past for the future is accomplished through the dedicated work of staff, students, and volunteers, combined with the financial support of The Archaeology Endowment at the Burke Museum.

• Volunteer at the Burke Museum.
• Make a tax-deductible donation to the Archaeology Endowment.