Robinson Collection Project—We’re BAAAACK!

Jaye Smith, Robinson Collection Project Team Lead 

Saturday, March 14, 2020, 10:46:25 a.m.: “Last night [Arizona State Museum] was informed that at the directive of the Provost Office and the office of Research, Innovation & Impact (RII) the Museum will be closed to the public effective this morning (3/14). Therefore, we are going to have to suspend the Robinson documentation project’s work at ASM for the next few weeks.” — Arthur Vokes

Sunday, March 15, 2020, 12:56:02 p.m.: “Given the pace at which things have moved over the past five days, let’s definitely take this next week off. If we make quick plans, they may be countermanded by some new development or order from above. In addition, we need some time to ensure that the Archaeology Southwest staff is prepared to work under the constraints of this fast-changing landscape.” — Bill Doelle

Tuesday, July 27, 2021, 9:38 a.m.: “The Robinson Project is gearing up for a return to the lab August 16, 2021.” — Jaye Smith

A span of 519 days—where did it go? The planned presentation of data from the Cork Site was put on hold when the April 2020 Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Annual Meeting was cancelled. I was able to continue to work on data projects remotely as the days passed us by. In September 2020, an opportunity to contribute to the upgrades on cyberSW was made available to eight of our Team Members, who knocked out what was originally considered to be a 5-month endeavor in six weeks. Then came a second opportunity to present the Cork data at the 2021 SAA meeting in San Francisco, which was subsequently cancelled for in-person attendance. We were finally able to present our paper during the virtual SAA meeting in April.

Now to the present—and we are so happy to be in the lab again! This current lab session is lovingly called “Robinson 2.0,” as we have retooled the program to include more in-depth research on the artifact assemblage (with the help of Archaeology Southwest’s staff) and to slow down and take more time with the objects to better understand their importance to the overall Safford Basin discussion.

We will be working with a small team this year, focused on improved collection preparation techniques, as well as more extensive documentation of the sherd and obsidian assemblages for inclusion into the cyberSW database. We are currently working on the artifact assemblage from a site that Ray Robinson called “Mustang”—a Salado site near the northern end of the San Pedro River.

And on to the future—we are looking forward to the opportunity of returning in the next few weeks to the ASM repository to finish our in-house documentation work. We have submitted our abstract for consideration for the 2022 SAAs in Chicago, highlighting the Elmers Farm and Layton Field sites.

It is good to be back!