Anthropology

The large and diverse collections of the Division of Anthropology at the Yale Peabody Museum include over 300,000 catalog records representing at least 1.5 million individual items—from pottery fragments and beads to boats and large wooden sculpture—plus supporting documentation like field notes, photographs, slides, drawings, and maps. The collections contain both utilitarian objects and items traditionally considered art. The full range of natural history materials is represented, including plants, animals, rocks and minerals, and fossils. The collections are therefore of interest to scholars in botany, zoology, and paleontology as well as anthropology.

The Yale Peabody Museum’s online Anthropology Collections Database contains items and historical records that may be culturally sensitive. Some records may include inaccurate descriptions or offensive language. These records do not reflect the Yale Peabody Museum’s current viewpoint but rather the social attitudes and circumstances of the time when items were collected or cataloged. While ongoing efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of the information, some content may contain errors and we update the data as appropriate. 

Australian Collection

Aboriginal Australian culture is represented in the Division by over 400 objects dating from the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection grew with a donation from the Australian government and was greatly enlarged by over 300 cultural items in the Flynn Collection of Aboriginal Art received in 1995 and 1996.

The bark paintings of the Flynn Collection of Aboriginal Art were assembled by Kate Morey Flynn and her husband, Dr. Michael Flynn, between 1982 and 1988. Many of the symbols and forms found in ancient Aboriginal rock art can be seen in engravings and paintings produced in historical and recent times, making Aboriginal art probably the world’s oldest continuous artistic tradition. Every element of Aboriginal art relates to the “Dreamtime,” the period in the ancestral past when the ancestor spirits created the known world, including the Aboriginal people themselves. Older traditional artists will sometimes induce a trance-like state to “sing” the painting into being. As the story unfolds in song they begin to paint and many of the most powerful paintings express this spiritual energy.

In addition to these paintings, the Flynn Collection contains carvings, didgeridoos (large trumpets made from tree limbs naturally hollowed by termites), boomerangs, shields, spears and baskets, and a wide assortment of 19th- and 20th-century Aboriginal cultural materials from the Western Deserts and Arnhem Land.

Mesoamerican & South American Collections

The beginnings of the Mesoamerican holdings in the Division of Anthropology can be traced to two major Late Post-Classic Aztec sculptures—a calendar stone from the Valley of Mexico and a stone statue of the deity Xipe Totec from Puebla, Mexico—purchased by Othniel C. Marsh in the 19th century.

North American Collections

The North American anthropology collections include systematically collected archaeological material from the U.S. Southeast (especially Florida), Southwest, and Alaska, and ethnographic materials from across the continent. There are significant additional collections from the U.S. states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and West Virginia. Holdings are particularly rich in cultural materials from the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies, and include ethnographic materials acquired by Othniel C. Marsh, many through the Yale College Scientific Expeditions of 1870–1873 to the American West in the late 19th century.

One of the largest systematic ethnographic collections in North America from the Philippines was acquired by Harold C. Conklin, along with other significant Southeast Asian collections from Conklin’s students. Conklin was a world authority on the peoples of the Philippines and Indonesia, with whom he worked during 25 trips totaling over 13 years of field research that focused primarily on ethnology, ecology, and linguistics. Conklin concentrated his research in insular southeast Asia, with his principal field sites on Mindoro (the Hanunóo) and Luzon (the Ifugao) in the Philippines.

There are also important ethnographic collections from pioneering research in economic anthropology in Papua New Guinea by Leopold J. Pospisil and materials from Oceania acquired by his students.

The anthropological collections from Asia include cultural materials systematically acquired by Yale faculty and students, such as Korean and Chinese material from Cornelius Osgood, and several important private donations.

Some of the most interesting materials in the Asian collection are 15th- to early 20th-century Japanese lacquerware containers, ceramics, textiles, and samurai armor and swords.

Research in the Anthropology Collections

The Peabody’s curatorial divisions are governed by the Museum’s collections policies and best practices document. Collections are available to researchers for scholarly use and loans are issued to individuals at established institutions. Loans and access can be arranged through the curatorial division’s collections manager.

For general information on objects in this collection, including identifications, contact the Yale Peabody Museum Department of Education at peabody.education@yale.edu.

Department Contact

Curators & Divisional Staff