Division of Anthropology, AMNH

North American Ethnographic Collection Over 47,000 objects represent North American Indians from the Arctic and sub-Arctic, the Pacific Northwest, California, the Southwest, the Great Plains, and the Eastern Woodlands. During his early 20^th century fieldwork, curator Clark Wissler collected over 1,000 objects representing the Plains Indian material culture. The collection continues to grow with recent acquisitions of contemporary textiles, ceramics, basketry, jewelry and Katsina figures.	African Ethnographic Collection Over 36,000 objects represent the diverse peoples of Africa. The earliest collections were donated by or bought from missionaries; some were obtained from European museums, auction houses, or received as gifts. During the Museum's Congo Expedition (1909-1915), mammalogist Herbert Lang and ornithologist James Chapin collected over 4,500 objects, primarily from the Mangbetu and Azande peoples.
Mexican & Central American Ethnographic Collection Over 7,000 objects and textiles represent the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America. A highlight of this collection is the 2,500 objects gathered by Carl Lumholtz while he lived and worked amongst the Tarahumara and Huichol Indians of Mexico's Sierra Madre between 1890 and 1897.	Asian Ethnographic Collection Over 44,000 objects represent the diverse peoples of Asia. During the Museum's Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902), Berthold Laufer, Waldemar Jochelson, and Waldemar Bogoras made an extraordinary collection of objects from Siberia and China.
South American Ethnographic Collection Over 20,000 objects and textiles represent the peoples of South America. Most of this material was collected among the many hunter-gatherer-horticultural tribes of the Amazon rainforest in the late 19^th through the 20^th century and demonstrates their skill in featherwork and pottery making. Rare pieces collected prior to 1910 illustrate the hunter-gatherer way of life of the Indians of Tierra del Fuego. Objects dating from the 1930s represent the lifestyles of the horsemen of Argentina’s Gran Chaco region.	Pacific Ethnographic Collection Over 25,000 objects represent the peoples of the Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesian culture regions. Over 3,400 of these objects were collected by Margaret Mead during her fieldwork in Samoa (1925-26), the Admiralty Islands (1928-29), and Papua New Guinea (1931-33). Intricately carved wood masks from New Ireland, over 100 years old, are elaborately decorated with plant fiber, coral, bark cloth.

North American Archaeological Collection is one of the largest and most significant such assemblages in the world. The artifacts are recovered from hundreds of museum excavations at key sites throughout the American Southwest (including Pueblo Bonito, Grand Gulch, Canyon de Chelley, the Galisteo Basin, and Aztec ruin), the Pacific Northwest, the Greater New York City area, the Great Basin (including Hidden Cave, Gatecliff Shelter, and Alta Toquima), Labrador, and the Southeast (including Poverty Point, Greenhouse, Jaketown and Menard). Over 150,000 objects are available online (description only, images are not available).

European Archaeological Collection

Over 18,000 catalog entries represent artifacts from European prehistory. France, with over 6,000 catalog entries, is the country which is most well-represented in the collection, followed by Denmark, with over 3,000 catalog entries. About 30% of the European archaeology collection was acquired prior to 1900, and about 60% was acquired between 1900 and World War II.
There are no plans to digitally image this collection in the near future.

Biological Anthropology Collection includes an extensive assembly of osteological remains, representing some 12,000 individuals from over 50 countries, as well as a smaller set of Old World non-human primate skeletal material, consisting mainly of macaques, mandrills, gorillas, and chimps. The collection also consists of a number of Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic artifacts, mostly but not exclusively from sites in France. It represents also fossil hominid casts, including first generation casts of the Lower and Upper Cave hominids of Zhoukoudian, People's Republic of China, which were donated by Dr. Franz Weidenreich in the 1940's. Over 17,000 objects are available online (description only, images are not available).

Laufer China Expedition Archive (1901-1904)

Between 1901 and 1904, Berthold Laufer, one of the most distinguished sinologists of his generation, led an expedition to China where he made a comprehensive ethnographic collection and conducted scholarly research on the history and culture of a sophisticated people that had not yet experienced the industrial transformation. Original documents from that period are accessible online and can be searched by addressee/sender name, accession number and document type.

Jesup North Pacific Expedition Archive (1897-1902)

The Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902) was the most important American anthropological expedition of its time. Conceived and directed by anthropologist Franz Boas, the expedition was financed by Museum president Morris K. Jesup. Original accession records and associated material from the Jesup Expedition are accessible online and can be searched by addressee/sender name, donor name, accession number, year, and document type.