Research and Collections
The Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology curates nearly 300,000 authenticated archaeological and ethnographic artifacts spanning the globe and range from the ancient to modern, with a particular focus on the Americas, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, and Europe. Our largest, the Americas Section, specialize in Native North and Central America, archaeology, the U.S.- Mexico borderlands, and contemporary Latin America.
These unique collections are curated and managed by faculty and students through the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, and used for classroom teaching, scholarly research, and public outreach programming. Collections include the Native American Soapstone Collection; the 19th Century John Vickers Redware Collection; the Papua New Guinea Art and Weaponry Collection; the Edmundo Morales Andean Hat and Headress Collection; the Cold War Collection, including items associated with the Berlin Wall; the U.S. Borderlands Collection; and, the Post-Genocide Rwanda Collection. Teaching Collections are used for advanced coursework in archaeology and collections management as well as for faculty-guided student research.
