2017-01-18 Paolo Pellegatti - Hearst Museum Legacies: The Collections of L.L. Loud 1911-1946
Channel: Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley
Date: 2019-10-13

Hearst Museum Legacies: The Collections of L.L. Loud 1911-1946
18 January 2017, ARF Brownbag
Speaker: Paolo Pellegatti (Phoebe Hearst Museum, UC Berkeley)
The Hearst Museum of Anthropology curates archaeological collections going back more than 150 years. Under Kroeber's directorship (1904 - 1947) the museum had its own active field program separated from the Department of Anthropology and, often following tips from landowners, researchers or accidental discoveries, it dispatched a handful of archaeologists whose work will result in the discovery of many important sites and more than 90,000 catalog records. Once the Department started to play a bigger role in field research, these collections provided the base over which Robert Heizer and the California Archaeological Survey will eventually build on, eventually increasing the number of objects in storage at Berkeley to a total of 900,000 catalog records accompanied by hundreds of cubic feet of documentation. A hundred years later, the older collections, with their documentation, field notes and photos tell us a story of a California landscape that is long gone but despite the nostalgic vibes they sometime transmit they have not lost their anthropological and research value. This presentation introduces the archaeological collections accrued to the museum through the work of Llewellyn L. Loud, janitor, guard, preparator and unofficial field archaeologist for the museum between 1910 and 1946, and how his discoveries are remembered and remains relevant in our time.