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Papers by Edward Luby

Research paper thumbnail of More Than “A Room of Antiquities” at the Global Museum: Constructing New Meanings Through the Provenance Research of an Ancient Egyptian Legacy Collection

Collections, Mar 2, 2022

Non-systematically excavated archaeological legacy collections of antiquities are often undervalu... more Non-systematically excavated archaeological legacy collections of antiquities are often undervalued or overlooked by museums because of their unknown provenience and questionable or problematic provenance. This article describes how extensive research into the provenance of an ancient Egyptian legacy collection purchased in Egypt in 1884 by Adolph Sutro that is now stewarded by the Global Museum at San Francisco State University exposes a new expansive research potential for the collection, enabling Museum Studies students and faculty and museum staff to construct innovative interpretive frameworks through integrated Museum Studies curriculum, educational public programming, and exhibitions of the collection in the museum. This case study underscores the importance of provenance research for contextualizing legacy collections and illustrates how this research can be a catalyst for important discussions of the antiquities trade, colonial collecting practices, public educational significance, and ethical collection stewardship, curation, and display.

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Research paper thumbnail of Monumentality in the hunter-gathererfisher landscapes of the Greater San Francisco Bay, California

Hunter Gatherer Research, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of Diachronic Changes in the Shell Mounds of the San Francisco Bay: A Case Study of Ellis Landing (CA-CCO-295)

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Research paper thumbnail of Access as activism

Museum Activism, 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of Late Holocene in the San Francisco Bay Area

Catalysts to Complexity, 2003

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Research paper thumbnail of Catalysts to Complexity

Catalysts to Complexity, 2003

When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fe... more When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fewer than 16 distinct languages and an untold number of small, autonomous Native communities. These societies all survived by foraging, and ethnohistoric records show a wide range of adaptations emphasizing a host of different marine and terrestrial foods. Many groups exhibited signs of cultural complexity including sedentism, high population density, permanent social inequality, and sophisticated maritime technologies. The ethnographic era was preceded by an archaeological past that extends back to the terminal Pleistocene. Essays in this volume explore the last three and one half millennia of this long history, focusing on the archaeological signatures of emergent cultural complexity. Organized geographically, they provide an intricate mosaic of archaeological, historic, and ethnographic findings that illuminate cultural changes over time. To explain these Late Holocene cultural developments, the authors address issues ranging from culture history, paleoenvironments, settlement, subsistence, exchange, ritual, power, and division of labor, and employ both ecological and post-modern perspectives. Complex cultural expressions, most highly developed in the Santa Barbara Channel and the North Coast, are viewed alternatively as fairly recent and abrupt responses to environmental flux or the end-product of gradual progressions that began earlier in the Holocene.

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Research paper thumbnail of Archaeological Curation and the Research Value of Archaeological Collections

Collections, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of A Survey of World War II-Era Provenance Research in American Art Museums

Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, 2004

The results of a national survey of American art museums concerning the implementation of World W... more The results of a national survey of American art museums concerning the implementation of World War Il-era provenance research are presented. After outlining the reasons why this research is important to the museum community, background information on the issue of World War ll-era looted art is reviewed. The survey process and the twelve questions that were asked in the anonymous survey are then outlined. The results of the survey are then presented and the implications of this research are discussed. Specifically, 80% of responding museums reported that one or two people were conducting provenance research, and 55% did not yet have policy in place. Eighty-seven percent of museums were not receiving outside funding, and more than 75% indicated that they were encountering difficulties. Three central challenges are identified—time, funding, and training. Despite these challenges, results indicate that the museum community considers World War ll-era provenance research an important issue.

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Research paper thumbnail of Social variation in ancient Mesopotamia : an architectural and mortuary analysis of Ur in the early second millennium B.C

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Research paper thumbnail of More Than One Mask: The Context of NAGPRA for Museums and Tribes

American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 2008

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Research paper thumbnail of An Accessibility Adventure: Teaching and Learning Exhibition Design Through the Lens of Disability Studies

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Research paper thumbnail of The KASHAYA POMO INTERPRETIVE TRAIL PROJECT

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Research paper thumbnail of Mound Building by California Hunter-Gatherers

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2012

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Research paper thumbnail of Shell Mounds and Mortuary Behavior in the San Francisco Bay Area

North American Archaeologist, 2004

The mortuary behavior of hunter-gatherers associated with a San Francisco Bay area shell mound is... more The mortuary behavior of hunter-gatherers associated with a San Francisco Bay area shell mound is analyzed. Mortuary analyses in the region are reviewed and critiqued, highlighting the general difficulties associated with investigating the mortuary behavior of hunter-gatherers. Using the concept of inequality and its link to surplus, a mortuary analysis of an example of a shell mound in the area, CA-ALA-328, is then conducted. A formal cemetery located beneath the shell mound is identified, followed by a burial setting involving inhumation into the matrix of the shell mound. A decrease in the level of inequality is observed in the burials as the site transitions from a cemetery to a shell mound. The implications of this change in inequality are explored, and a new interpretation of mortuary behavior at shell mounds is presented. Finally, several areas where the analysis contributes to the development of archaeological theory are outlined.

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Research paper thumbnail of Maintaining Relationships with Native Communities: The Role of Museum Management and Governance

Museum Management and Curatorship, 2007

Abstract This paper examines whether museums in the United States are making organizational adjus... more Abstract This paper examines whether museums in the United States are making organizational adjustments to ensure that their relationships with Native communities are long-lived, healthy, and sustainable. The results of a survey of management practices and organizational structures in American museums concerning the status of long-term relationships with Native communities are presented. We find that while museums consider long-term relationships with Native communities to be important, they are not making the structural adjustments to ensure that such relationships are secure and long-lasting. The main challenges include an absence of policy on issues of critical concern to Native communities, a lack of procedures in many museums for formalizing staff knowledge about relationships when staff leave their positions, and organizational structures that do not live up to their full potential. Finally, based on a global perspective, five specific recommendations designed to maintain museums’ long-term relationships with Native communities are presented.

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Research paper thumbnail of Shell Mounds and Mounded Landscapes in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Integrated Approach

The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 2006

Current understanding of the shell mounds of the San Francisco Bay Area, now almost completely de... more Current understanding of the shell mounds of the San Francisco Bay Area, now almost completely destroyed due to urban expansion, is summarized. After interpretations of how and why coastal hunter-gatherers created these sites are discussed, salient characteristics of shell ...

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Research paper thumbnail of New insights about the construction and use of shell mounds from the geochemical analysis of mollusks: an example from the greater San Francisco Bay

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2013

ABSTRACT A new method developed by Schweikhardt et al. (2011) for the geochemical analysis of bay... more ABSTRACT A new method developed by Schweikhardt et al. (2011) for the geochemical analysis of bay mussels is applicable (when combined with radiocarbon assessments) for examining the seasonal construction patterns and growth cycles of coastal mound sites over time. Ideally suited for the analysis of mollusk fragments in museum collections, this method allows archaeologists to evaluate divergent models about the functions of mound sites, as well as the mobility practices and social organizations of the mound builders. In this case study, the method is employed to examine two adjacent mounds (Ellis Landing, Brooks Island) in the San Francisco Bay Area, California to assess whether their occupants may have participated in a broader multi-site community dating to the Late Period (1100–250 BP).

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Research paper thumbnail of Geochemical methods for inferring seasonal occupation of an estuarine shellmound: a case study from San Francisco Bay

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2011

... Permissions & Reprints. Geochemical Methods for Inferring Seasonal Occupation of an Stuar... more ... Permissions & Reprints. Geochemical Methods for Inferring Seasonal Occupation of an Stuarine Shellmound a Case Study from San francisco bay. ... d San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue HUM 515 San Francisco, CA 94132. ...

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Research paper thumbnail of A Validation Test of a Field-Based Phosphate Analysis Technique

Journal of Archaeological Science, 1996

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Research paper thumbnail of The Dead Must be Fed: Symbolic Meanings of the Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 1999

Long viewed as ‘kitchen middens’, the shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area have -provided ar... more Long viewed as ‘kitchen middens’, the shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area have -provided archaeologists of coastal California insight into the subsistence and ecology of precontact native groups. In this article, the authors develop a framework for understanding the cultural significance of these shellmounds which regards them as intentional cultural features, incorporates social context, and builds on earlier subsistence-focused studies of the shellmounds in order to better appreciate the meaning of the numerous human remains interred therein. A structural analysis is then used to show that the concepts of food and ancestors joined together at shellmounds, so much so that ritual attention to the ancestors was very likely regarded as essential to ensuring a continuing supply of food.

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Research paper thumbnail of More Than “A Room of Antiquities” at the Global Museum: Constructing New Meanings Through the Provenance Research of an Ancient Egyptian Legacy Collection

Collections, Mar 2, 2022

Non-systematically excavated archaeological legacy collections of antiquities are often undervalu... more Non-systematically excavated archaeological legacy collections of antiquities are often undervalued or overlooked by museums because of their unknown provenience and questionable or problematic provenance. This article describes how extensive research into the provenance of an ancient Egyptian legacy collection purchased in Egypt in 1884 by Adolph Sutro that is now stewarded by the Global Museum at San Francisco State University exposes a new expansive research potential for the collection, enabling Museum Studies students and faculty and museum staff to construct innovative interpretive frameworks through integrated Museum Studies curriculum, educational public programming, and exhibitions of the collection in the museum. This case study underscores the importance of provenance research for contextualizing legacy collections and illustrates how this research can be a catalyst for important discussions of the antiquities trade, colonial collecting practices, public educational significance, and ethical collection stewardship, curation, and display.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Monumentality in the hunter-gathererfisher landscapes of the Greater San Francisco Bay, California

Hunter Gatherer Research, 2017

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Diachronic Changes in the Shell Mounds of the San Francisco Bay: A Case Study of Ellis Landing (CA-CCO-295)

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Access as activism

Museum Activism, 2019

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Late Holocene in the San Francisco Bay Area

Catalysts to Complexity, 2003

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Catalysts to Complexity

Catalysts to Complexity, 2003

When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fe... more When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fewer than 16 distinct languages and an untold number of small, autonomous Native communities. These societies all survived by foraging, and ethnohistoric records show a wide range of adaptations emphasizing a host of different marine and terrestrial foods. Many groups exhibited signs of cultural complexity including sedentism, high population density, permanent social inequality, and sophisticated maritime technologies. The ethnographic era was preceded by an archaeological past that extends back to the terminal Pleistocene. Essays in this volume explore the last three and one half millennia of this long history, focusing on the archaeological signatures of emergent cultural complexity. Organized geographically, they provide an intricate mosaic of archaeological, historic, and ethnographic findings that illuminate cultural changes over time. To explain these Late Holocene cultural developments, the authors address issues ranging from culture history, paleoenvironments, settlement, subsistence, exchange, ritual, power, and division of labor, and employ both ecological and post-modern perspectives. Complex cultural expressions, most highly developed in the Santa Barbara Channel and the North Coast, are viewed alternatively as fairly recent and abrupt responses to environmental flux or the end-product of gradual progressions that began earlier in the Holocene.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Archaeological Curation and the Research Value of Archaeological Collections

Collections, 2013

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of A Survey of World War II-Era Provenance Research in American Art Museums

Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, 2004

The results of a national survey of American art museums concerning the implementation of World W... more The results of a national survey of American art museums concerning the implementation of World War Il-era provenance research are presented. After outlining the reasons why this research is important to the museum community, background information on the issue of World War ll-era looted art is reviewed. The survey process and the twelve questions that were asked in the anonymous survey are then outlined. The results of the survey are then presented and the implications of this research are discussed. Specifically, 80% of responding museums reported that one or two people were conducting provenance research, and 55% did not yet have policy in place. Eighty-seven percent of museums were not receiving outside funding, and more than 75% indicated that they were encountering difficulties. Three central challenges are identified—time, funding, and training. Despite these challenges, results indicate that the museum community considers World War ll-era provenance research an important issue.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Social variation in ancient Mesopotamia : an architectural and mortuary analysis of Ur in the early second millennium B.C

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of More Than One Mask: The Context of NAGPRA for Museums and Tribes

American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 2008

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of An Accessibility Adventure: Teaching and Learning Exhibition Design Through the Lens of Disability Studies

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The KASHAYA POMO INTERPRETIVE TRAIL PROJECT

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Mound Building by California Hunter-Gatherers

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2012

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Shell Mounds and Mortuary Behavior in the San Francisco Bay Area

North American Archaeologist, 2004

The mortuary behavior of hunter-gatherers associated with a San Francisco Bay area shell mound is... more The mortuary behavior of hunter-gatherers associated with a San Francisco Bay area shell mound is analyzed. Mortuary analyses in the region are reviewed and critiqued, highlighting the general difficulties associated with investigating the mortuary behavior of hunter-gatherers. Using the concept of inequality and its link to surplus, a mortuary analysis of an example of a shell mound in the area, CA-ALA-328, is then conducted. A formal cemetery located beneath the shell mound is identified, followed by a burial setting involving inhumation into the matrix of the shell mound. A decrease in the level of inequality is observed in the burials as the site transitions from a cemetery to a shell mound. The implications of this change in inequality are explored, and a new interpretation of mortuary behavior at shell mounds is presented. Finally, several areas where the analysis contributes to the development of archaeological theory are outlined.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Maintaining Relationships with Native Communities: The Role of Museum Management and Governance

Museum Management and Curatorship, 2007

Abstract This paper examines whether museums in the United States are making organizational adjus... more Abstract This paper examines whether museums in the United States are making organizational adjustments to ensure that their relationships with Native communities are long-lived, healthy, and sustainable. The results of a survey of management practices and organizational structures in American museums concerning the status of long-term relationships with Native communities are presented. We find that while museums consider long-term relationships with Native communities to be important, they are not making the structural adjustments to ensure that such relationships are secure and long-lasting. The main challenges include an absence of policy on issues of critical concern to Native communities, a lack of procedures in many museums for formalizing staff knowledge about relationships when staff leave their positions, and organizational structures that do not live up to their full potential. Finally, based on a global perspective, five specific recommendations designed to maintain museums’ long-term relationships with Native communities are presented.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Shell Mounds and Mounded Landscapes in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Integrated Approach

The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 2006

Current understanding of the shell mounds of the San Francisco Bay Area, now almost completely de... more Current understanding of the shell mounds of the San Francisco Bay Area, now almost completely destroyed due to urban expansion, is summarized. After interpretations of how and why coastal hunter-gatherers created these sites are discussed, salient characteristics of shell ...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of New insights about the construction and use of shell mounds from the geochemical analysis of mollusks: an example from the greater San Francisco Bay

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2013

ABSTRACT A new method developed by Schweikhardt et al. (2011) for the geochemical analysis of bay... more ABSTRACT A new method developed by Schweikhardt et al. (2011) for the geochemical analysis of bay mussels is applicable (when combined with radiocarbon assessments) for examining the seasonal construction patterns and growth cycles of coastal mound sites over time. Ideally suited for the analysis of mollusk fragments in museum collections, this method allows archaeologists to evaluate divergent models about the functions of mound sites, as well as the mobility practices and social organizations of the mound builders. In this case study, the method is employed to examine two adjacent mounds (Ellis Landing, Brooks Island) in the San Francisco Bay Area, California to assess whether their occupants may have participated in a broader multi-site community dating to the Late Period (1100–250 BP).

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Geochemical methods for inferring seasonal occupation of an estuarine shellmound: a case study from San Francisco Bay

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2011

... Permissions & Reprints. Geochemical Methods for Inferring Seasonal Occupation of an Stuar... more ... Permissions & Reprints. Geochemical Methods for Inferring Seasonal Occupation of an Stuarine Shellmound a Case Study from San francisco bay. ... d San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue HUM 515 San Francisco, CA 94132. ...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of A Validation Test of a Field-Based Phosphate Analysis Technique

Journal of Archaeological Science, 1996

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The Dead Must be Fed: Symbolic Meanings of the Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 1999

Long viewed as ‘kitchen middens’, the shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area have -provided ar... more Long viewed as ‘kitchen middens’, the shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area have -provided archaeologists of coastal California insight into the subsistence and ecology of precontact native groups. In this article, the authors develop a framework for understanding the cultural significance of these shellmounds which regards them as intentional cultural features, incorporates social context, and builds on earlier subsistence-focused studies of the shellmounds in order to better appreciate the meaning of the numerous human remains interred therein. A structural analysis is then used to show that the concepts of food and ancestors joined together at shellmounds, so much so that ritual attention to the ancestors was very likely regarded as essential to ensuring a continuing supply of food.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact