Museums - National Museum of Natural History

The broad, systematic collections of the Smithsonian’s Department of Anthropology are the result of decades of fieldwork and research by scholars on the staff of the museum and the former Bureau of American Ethnology, as well as selected donations and purchases. These materials were augmented in the early years of the institution by deposits from nineteenth-century exploring expeditions, geographic surveys of the continent, diplomatic missions, and transfers from government collections that pre-dated the Smithsonian. Together these collections document the cultural and biological diversity of humankind, past and present.
The archaeology collections of more than two million objects derive primarily from Smithsonian-sponsored excavations. From the mid-nineteenth century survey of Mississippian mound sites to the massive mid-twentieth century River Basin Survey Program to the current Paleo-Indian research program, much of this work has focused on North America. There are, however, significant collections from other world areas, including artifacts from the first excavations at many locations in Central and South America, and rare materials from the Old World Paleolithic and Mesolithic eras.
The ethnology collection is comprised of a quarter of a million objects representing nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century cultures from around the globe. Exploration expedition collections document periods of early contact worldwide, while the Bureau of American Ethnology materials represent the results of large-scale, systematic collecting as an integral part of in-depth research in Native American communities. While the collection is particularly strong in material from North America, there are significant collections from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, Oceania, Indonesia, and South America, including many examples of lost craft forms and artifact types. In addition to supporting scholarly research about the past, the collections are a source of information and inspiration for Native communities reviving cultural practices and craft traditions.
The museum’s current displays are both dated and limited, although there is a great deal of fine Native Hawaiian material on view. The bulk of the collection is available to qualified researchers by appointment at a separate storage facility.