Conservation is a profession dedicated to studying, documenting, and treating artifacts, collections and sites in order to preserve them for future generations. Some of the goals of conservation include:

• Documenting an object at its present state
• Managing or slowing its change or degradation
• Maintaining the integrity, authenticity, and legibility of an object
• Protecting and revealing evidence of the past
• Sometimes making aesthetic decisions about how an object “should” look; this is usually agreed upon in discussions with the client, institution or other stakeholders
• Making cultural heritage accessible, legible, and available for use by descendant communities, scholars, and the general public
• Collaborating with curators, archaeologists, descendant communities, and various other stakeholders to understand and interpret objects and sites