Both Holly Young and Jennifer Schansberg have pointed to the difference in attitudes betwenn archaeologists and museum collections managers concerning the fate of archaeological artifacts once they have been excavated and *initially* analyzed. This subject brings up one of my pet peaves, so I can't help but join in the disscussion. By way of introduction, let me say that I am both an archaeologist and a museum professional who knows a fair amount about collections management. Contrary to what Jim Barnes might think, this "exposure" to museum work has not caused me to suffer the horrors of schizophrenia or multiple personalities. I'd like to think that my dual background has given me some perspective on both sides of the issue (or is this being simply too presumptuous?) It is a legacy of the archaeological profession and the way that we do archaeology in this country that artifacts are viewed as somewhat dis- posable. We dig them up, carefully record their provenience, clean them (sometimes too much), number them, analyze them and stick them in a box for storage. At this point, our attention turns to the data we have created from the analysis of the artifacts. We massage it, manipulate it, put it through rigorous statistical analysis. We even come back to the data and re-analyze it, especially when a controversy arises concerning our conclusions. But the artifact itself is out of sight, out of mind. How often do we go back and look at it again? How often does another archaeologist dig it out of its box, years later, and take another look at it from a different theoretical and/or methodological perspective? Let's face it, it is much more desirable from a professional and funding standpoint to go out, dig anew and dig up more stuff to wash, number, analyze and then box up. This attitude has resulted in millions of artifacts, many improperly numbered and curated, sitting on hundreds of storage shelves untouched for years. It is not at all uncommon for mice or other vermin to eat away the paper bags in which the artifacts are stored (along with their provenience information) before anyone looks at the stuff again. We have become a lot more cognizant about excavating sites so that we leave something behind for future generations of archaeologists to excavate, and so that what we leave behind is intact enough to yield information at a later date. However, we have yet to adopt a similar attitude towards the artifact collections we generate by excavating. Yes, there are some archaeologists who actively do original research with such collections, but by and large this has not sunk into the profession at large. Let's face it. One of these days we are going to run out of at least certain kinds of sites to excavate. All we are going to have left are the artifacts that have been previously excavated. Unless we start curating them, and all the associated field and laboratory documentation, in such a manner that makes it usable for future archaeologists, we're going to take up a lot of storage space with collections that are of little use to anyone, and we're going to work our way right out of a profession.