Rehabilitation of the Marco Island Historical Society’s Archaeological Collections

A National Endowment for the Humanities Project to Curate Recent Collections from Now-Legendary Sites in Southwest Florida

Abstract

In 2016, the Marco Island Historical Society (MIHS) received a Preservation Assistance Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to purchase preservation supplies necessary to rehouse the entirety of its archaeological holdings from Marco Island, Florida. Sites represented in the collections include Key Marco, Caxambas, and Horr’s Island, which have been well-known to archaeologists in Florida for a century. Between January 2017 and July 2018, with the assistance of student interns, the MIHS successfully rehabilitated these collections so that they not only be adequately preserved, but also be made readily available to academic researchers and the general public.