Heather,

We use a combination of catalog numbers and lot numbers for specimens.  If
you have an individual specimen it is assigned a catalog number (i.e., one
projectile point = a catalog number).  When we have a pile of stuff that is
all the same from the same provenience, it gets a lot number.  For example,
a bag of nails all from the same unit and strat would have a lot number.
If for some reason, it turns out that one of the nail bits is different and
important for some reason, it can always get assigned a catalog number at a
later date when that is discovered.  It keeps its lot number as well though
so it is easy to find everything else that it was associated with if
needed.

Dr. Elizabeth A. Moore, Curator
Virginia Museum of Natural History
1001 Douglas Avenue
Martinsville, VA  24112
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> From: Heather Perry <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Archaeological Collections
> Date: Friday, September 18, 1998 4:22 PM
>
> I’ve been working on our collections recently, and had a question
> which I hoped someone out there may be able to help me with!
> When I began the work few of the objects had accession numbers.  I’ve
> been assigning numbers using the three part    year.collection.item
>    system (eg 98.04.01) and everything was going fine until I
> discovered artifacts from an excavation which took place on site here.
> Along with some of the more interesting objects such as military
> buttons and coins, there are hundreds of pieces of ‘junk’ eg tiny
> shards of glass, broken pieces of nails etc. I don’t want to have to
> give a separate number to each item, but I don’t know of  any
> acceptable alternative. This is the only archaeological collection we
> are ever likely to have - we don’t store collections from other sites.
> We had considered giving all archaeological objects the year number 60
>  (which will be difficult to mix up with other year numbers as we
> opened in 1990 and plan to change to a four digit year number in the
> year 2000). Then give each type of object a collection number (eg all
> glass given the number .01), only giving an item number to
> ‘interesting’ pieces - such as those with manufacturers marks.
> What system do other people use for cataloguing their archaeological
> collections? I would appreciate any suggestions!
>
> Thanks!
> Heather.
>
>
>
>
>
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