The National Anthropological Archives is the third largest archive in the Smithsonian Institution and a sister archive to the Human Studies Film Archive . The collection documents the history of anthropology and the world's peoples and cultures, and is used in indigenous language revitalization . It is located in the Smithsonian's Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland , and is part of the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History .
16-500: The National Anthropological Archives (NAA) is the successor to the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE), which was founded in 1879 by John Wesley Powell . In 1968, The NAA was formalized, incorporating the collections of the BAE, which focused on American Indians , as well as the papers of Smithsonian anthropology curators and other anthropologists who conduct research around
32-612: Is part of the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History . The National Anthropological Archives (NAA) is the successor to the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE), which was founded in 1879 by John Wesley Powell . In 1968, The NAA was formalized, incorporating the collections of the BAE, which focused on American Indians , as well as the papers of Smithsonian anthropology curators and other anthropologists who conduct research around
48-475: The 20th century, the BAE's staff included such anthropologists as John Peabody Harrington (a linguist who spent more than 40 years documenting endangered languages), Matthew Stirling , and William C. Sturtevant . The BAE supported the work of many non-Smithsonian researchers (known as collaborators), most notably Franz Boas , Frances Densmore , Garrick Mallery , Washington Matthews , Paul Radin , Cyrus Thomas and T.T. Waterman . The BAE had three subunits:
64-662: The BAE was the official repository of documents concerning American Indians collected by the various US geological surveys, especially the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region and the Geological Survey of the Territories . It developed a manuscript repository, library and illustrations section that included photographic work and the collection of photographs. In 1897,
80-774: The Bureau of Ethnology's name changed to the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) to emphasize the geographic limit of its interests, although its staff briefly conducted research in US possessions such as Hawaii and the Philippines. In 1965, the BAE merged with the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology to form the Smithsonian Office of Anthropology within the United States National Museum (now
96-512: The Bureau's appointed head of the Division of Mound Exploration, eventually published his conclusions on the origins of the mounds in the Bureau's Annual Report of 1894. It is considered to be the last word in the controversy over the Mound builders' identities. After Thomas' publication, scholars generally accepted that varying cultures of prehistoric indigenous peoples , Native Americans, were
112-648: The Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History ). In 1968, the SOA archives became the National Anthropological Archives . The BAE's staff included some of America's earliest field anthropologists, including Frank Hamilton Cushing , James Owen Dorsey , Jesse Walter Fewkes , Alice Cunningham Fletcher , John N.B. Hewitt, Francis La Flesche , Cosmos and Victor Mindeleff, James Mooney , William Henry Holmes , Edward Palmer , James Stevenson , and Matilda Coxe Stevenson . In
128-818: The Mound Survey (1882–1895); the Institute of Social Anthropology (1943–1952), and the River Basin Surveys (1946–1969). At the time the BAE was founded, there was intense controversy over the identity of the Mound Builders , the term for the prehistoric people who had built complex, monumental earthwork mounds . Archaeologists, both amateur and professional, were divided between believing the mounds were built by passing groups of people who settled in various places elsewhere, or believing they could have been built by Native Americans. Cyrus Thomas ,
144-667: The Mound builders. National Anthropological Archives The National Anthropological Archives is the third largest archive in the Smithsonian Institution and a sister archive to the Human Studies Film Archive . The collection documents the history of anthropology and the world's peoples and cultures, and is used in indigenous language revitalization . It is located in the Smithsonian's Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland , and
160-583: The Smithsonian's archival catalog. In 2014, the NAA received a grant for preservation and digitization of sound recordings of endangered languages. Directors of the National Anthropological Archives have included: {{|url= https://siarchives.si.edu/blog/wonderful-women-wednesday-margaret-c-blaker |language=en-US}} Bureau of American Ethnology The Bureau of American Ethnology (or BAE , originally, Bureau of Ethnology )
176-429: The archives include nearly 1 million photographs, 20,000 works of indigenous art, and 11,400 sound recordings. In 2010, the NAA received a Save America's Treasures grant to preserve manuscripts relating to 250 endangered languages . from native North America. NAA photographs and manuscripts, including 8,200 pages of Cherokee language materials, have been scanned and are available online for research through SOVA,
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#1732775919385192-427: The archives include nearly 1 million photographs, 20,000 works of indigenous art, and 11,400 sound recordings. In 2010, the NAA received a Save America's Treasures grant to preserve manuscripts relating to 250 endangered languages . from native North America. NAA photographs and manuscripts, including 8,200 pages of Cherokee language materials, have been scanned and are available online for research through SOVA,
208-513: The bureau organized research-intensive multi-year projects; sponsored ethnographic , archaeological and linguistic field research; initiated publications series (most notably its Annual Reports and Bulletins); and promoted the fledgling discipline of anthropology . It prepared exhibits for expositions and collected anthropological artifacts for the Smithsonian United States National Museum. In addition,
224-881: The world. The establishment of the NAA was supported by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation to provide a repository for scholars without a home institution (or whose home institution had no archives), in order to promote the preservation of the anthropological record. The NAA is the only archival repository in the United States dedicated to preserving ethnographic , archaeological , and linguistic fieldnotes , physical anthropological data, photographs, sound recordings and other media created by American anthropologists. The collection includes fieldnotes, journals, manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, maps, sound recordings. Spanning over 150 years of American history and world history , materials held in
240-739: The world. The establishment of the NAA was supported by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation to provide a repository for scholars without a home institution (or whose home institution had no archives), in order to promote the preservation of the anthropological record. The NAA is the only archival repository in the United States dedicated to preserving ethnographic , archaeological , and linguistic fieldnotes , physical anthropological data, photographs, sound recordings and other media created by American anthropologists. The collection includes fieldnotes, journals, manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, maps, sound recordings. Spanning over 150 years of American history and world history , materials held in
256-622: Was established in 1879 by an act of Congress for the purpose of transferring archives, records and materials relating to the Indians of North America from the Department of the Interior to the Smithsonian Institution . But from the start, the bureau's visionary founding director, John Wesley Powell , promoted a broader mission: "to organize anthropologic research in America." Under Powell,
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