Archaeology Magazine - March/April 2009 - 9

Fire
Penn

in
Museum's

the

Lab

plan

to cut research

by the University of
Pennsylvania Museum
Apian of Archaeology and
Anthropology to cut costs by
laying off 18 researchers and
closing a major scientific laboratory
has drawn angry protests from
academics in the United States
and abroad» Facing the backlash,
museum director and archaeologist
Richard Hodges said he will likely
keep an as-yet-undetermined
number of the 18 researchers on
staff, but stood by plans to shutter
the Museum Applied Science
Center for Archaeology (MASCA)
as part of a plan to deal with
slumping fundraising. Supporters of
MASCA call it one of the museums
core strengths and cite its pioneering
work on the development of
agriculture in the ancient Near East
and the Maya world.
"What I'm trying to do is make
the museum more financially sustainable" Hodges told Archaeology. But he sounded an optimistic
note on renewed fundraising efforts
since announcing the layoffs in
December/' We are finding quite a
few new opportunities for funding,
and I am pretty confident that in
the end the number wont be anything like that," he said, referring to
the 18 researchers originally slated
to be let go.
Hodges announced the changes
while circulating a "five-year strategy" to overhaul the venerable Philadelphia institution. The plan called
for refurbishing exhibits, bolstering
educational programs, and making

www.archaeology.org

draws

criticism

the museum more tourist-friendly
by adding an expensive restaurant
and a visitor services department.
The plan also called for"refram[ing]
exhibitions in line with contemporary intellectual frameworks."
"Some of our exhibits looked
great in the '80s but they're a little
tired now,"said Hodges, adding that
he hopes to raise annual visitorship from 160,000 to 300,000 in
five years. He said MASCA "was
groundbreaking in the 1960s and
'70s," but that its mission of pure
archaeological research did not fit
with the museum's new direction.
The cutbacks drew almost immediate criticism, much of it focused
on the plan to close MASCA and
dismiss Patrick McGovern, head
of its Biomolecular Archaeology
Laboratory and a nationally known
researcher on the origins of wine
and chocolate. In a letter to Hodges,
Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's
Supreme Council of Antiquities,
said McGovern and other MASCA
researchers "dedicated their whole

lives to the discovery and elucidation of humans on this planet" and
urged Hodges "to reconsider this
harmful decision."
Founded in 1961 as a center for
radiocarbon dating, MASCA specializes in molecular and biological
analysis of archaeological remains,
and has a long list of research breakthroughs to its name. Among them
are McGovern's work that showed
chocolate was cultivated in Mesoamerica by 1100 b.c., five centuries
earlier than previously thought.
MASCAs demise would also mean
laying off two other prominent
researchers: Naomi Miller, a specialist in Near Eastern agriculture, and
Kathleen Ryan, who studies ancient
settlement patterns in east Africa.
Other research-driven museums
face similar distress.The Field Museum
in Chicago announced in January
that its endowment had fallen $95
million, about 30 percent. "Corporate
and philanthropic giving are down.
What we see anecdotally is that
many museums are in similar situations as the Penn and the Field," said
Dewey Blanton, a spokesman for the
American Association of Museums.
McGovern, who also teaches
graduate and undergraduate courses
in biomolecular archaeology at Penn,
said past efforts to boost visitor
levels had fallen short and doubted
this one would fare any better.
"What has worked for the museum
is cutting-edge research," said
McGovern. "This is what excites and
draws people into the museum."
- Roger Atwood

9
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Archaeology Magazine - March/April 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March/April 2009
