COLLECTIONS
[Under Construction]
A summary and a link to a brief visual tour of portions of the Wesleyan Archaeology and Anthropology Collections are provided below. They give a fair idea of the diversity of our holdings. Please visit the Collections in the Classroom and Featured Objects portion of the site for additional object photographs.
Collections Summary
The Anthropology and Archaeology Collections are made up of material culture from around the world as well as fossil casts and other non-cultural items (e.g. animal skeletons) essential to the hands-on teaching of archaeology and biological anthropology.
Archaeological materials range from stone tools produced by human ancestors in the Middle East roughly one million years ago to the tea services used by some of Middletown's nineteenth century residents; there are also substantial classical Mediterranean and prehistoric Native American holdings.
Ethnographic materials included baskets, coins, personal and religious items, pottery, tools and weapons from almost every continent. Of particular note are fine collections of mid-nineteenth century carved wooden implements from Oceania and early twentieth century Hopi pottery.
Together, these diverse holdings form a unique educational resource, the full potential of which has yet to be be realized.
Detail of carving on a paddle club from the Austral Islands, ca. 1870 (left); detail of Ogallala Sioux star quilt attributed to Nancy Horn Cloud, ca. 1970 (center); detail of decoration inside a Greek stemless cup, ca. 350-300 BCE (right).