Unmingling commingled museum collections: A photographic method

Abstract

Post-curation commingling is complicated. Unlike commingling at deposition, curated remains have additional opportunities to become mixed. The importance and increasing use of osteological collections means that these collections must be carefully curated. It also means that there are additional opportunities for institutional commingling. Knowledge of a collection's history prior to analysis is important for recognizing possible collection commingling and for sorting it out. Collection-associated documents, namely, photographs, are helpful for further refining the organization of a skeletal assemblage. A photo-matching method was applied to the Aztalan human remains collection. The method is simple but effective. It restored provenience for some skeletal elements, corrected misinterpretation, and helped in rediscovering the locally famous Aztalan Princess. The rearticulation of the princess was the most important result achieved using this method. It was a means of giving back to the community while expanding knowledge of the Aztalan site. The photo-matching method is easy and inexpensive. It can be broadly applied to almost any material in any context.