John Day Fossil Beds National Monument: Museum Management Plan

The John Day Fossil Beds National Monument Museum Management Plan identifies a series of collections management issues facing the park and presents corresponding actions to address them. This plan represents a snapshot of the park during a two-week visit in June 2007 and makes recommendations based on the team’s observations and interactions with park staff. Since that visit the park has made a number of changes and has implemented a number of those recommendations. Most notably, a park collections manager was selected and began work in March 2008. According to the 2007 Collections Management Report (CMR), the park has a collection numbering almost 58,000 items in 355 accessions. The vast majority are paleontological specimens (more than 45,000). Although the park was created to preserve, research, and interpret its significant paleontological collections, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (JODA) also has significant cultural and other natural resources. Cultural resource collections include archeology and history items. The 2007 CMR indicates that there are about 4,500 archeological items and 1,561 history items. The increased number for archeological items (in 2006 the number was only 116) is based upon information gained during the course of this plan but largely consists of debitage and unidentifiable bone fragments. As more research is conducted, the value and significance of this collection grows and indicates a human habitation of approximately 10,000 years. The historical materials are related to the Cant Ranch and the Cant-Mascall families but many of these artifacts are on temporary loan. The Cant Ranch is representative of the sheep/cattle ranching history of central Oregon and provides a context for the early history of the expeditions that first explored the area for its paleontological resources.