Laura Kelvin Abstract

Avertok Archaeology Archive Project

Dr. Laura Kelvin

This research explores best practices for knowledge sharing through the creation of the Avertok Archaeology Archive. This archive will house research results from the community-initiated Avertok Archaeology Project (AAP) and give Hopedale community members digital access to artifacts from Avertok housed in museums. Avertok is a large Inuit whaling site on the coast of Labrador that was an important part of the Inuit-European coastal trade network during the 16th to 18th centuries. It has been subject to many archaeological investigations, and artifacts from the site are now housed in museums in Canada, the United States and throughout Europe. The site is located within the current boundaries of the Hamlet of Hopedale and remains culturally important to the people of the community; however, they have seen very little of what has been excavated. This project involves documenting Avertok and Hopedale collections at various museums and aims to bring Elders and youth from Hopedale together to create content for the archive, including community knowledge of the collections and Avertok, oral histories, traditional knowledge, and digital replicas of artifacts. Through the creation of the archive, the objectives of my research are (1) to share archaeological research results from the AAP, as well as previous excavations, with the Hopedale community; (2) bring artifacts recovered from Avertok together so that they can be studied as one collection; (3) develop guidelines for establishing best practices for archaeological and community knowledge sharing; (4) train Hopedale community members to use accessible, low-cost technologies to document and share archaeological and traditional knowledge.