Have you ever had someone bring in something they found on the beach and didn't quite know what to do with it? Who does it actually belong to? Should we accept it into our collection? Here is your chance to find out! 

On April 15th from 9-12, we will meet at the Oregon Coast Military Museum (2145 Kingwood Street, Florence) for our SWOMA meeting. We will be joined by State Archaeologist Dennis Griffin who will talk about Flotsam & Jetsam - Determining the importance of shipwrecks and their debris on Oregon's beaches: Recordation, Collection, Curation, or Landfill. He will describe how to handle these types of materials when they show up at your museum's front door and how they fit into a larger historical context.  

Dennis has served as the State Archaeologist with the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) since 2002. He received his Masters degree from Oregon State University in 1985, a PhD. in Anthropology from the University of Oregon in 1999, and he has spent the last 40 years working as an archaeologist throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska for federal, state and tribal governments as well as a private consultant. His areas of archaeological interest focus both in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska with a specialization in oral history, tribal collaborative research and more recently, Oregon’s early military history.  

Please RSVP (curator@cooshistory.org) with how many folks will be coming from your organization. Thanks, and hope to see you there!

Debra Semrau
curator@cooshistory.org