ABSTRACT
With an increasing number of house museums seeking to incorporate archaeology into their interpretations for the public, there is a need to devise and discuss effective strategies for translating what one scholar has called an ‘explosion’ of technical archaeological information for a variety of different publics. A successful collaboration with a museum board provides ripe opportunity for archaeologists to act as caretakers and advocates. The Royall House, in Medford, Massachusetts, was owned by the merchant Isaac Royall and his family, who were involved in all three of the principal elements of the Triangular Trade, from ca. 1703 to 1775. At the Royall House, archaeology challenged the museum to grapple with its use of ‘things’ to convey the much larger ideas of social relations and cultural process that give the Royall House significance on a grander, almost metaphysical scale.
