UNCOVERING PROVENANCE IN NORTH AMERICAN NORTHWEST COAST HARPOON TECHNOLOGIES

The dissociation of material culture from their creator communities is one of the greatest threats to their well-being and care in museum collections. This study addresses this problem by working with descendant communities to establish a collaborative model for uncovering data from avocational harpoon collections held at the Olympic National Park repository. The model utilizes an approach based on curation history, ethnographic review and a comparative analysis with partnering tribal collections and select harpoon typologies. The data re-establishes the creator community of origin by identifying similarities in the museum collection to those known from the archaeological and ethnographic records near modern descendant communities. While precise provenience may have been lost for these collections, the general geographic provenience permits connection to descendant communities living on the Olympic Peninsula today.