Bureau of American Ethnology

Short description: American research organization

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Frances Densmore with Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief during a recording session for the BAE

The Bureau of American Ethnology (or BAE, originally, Bureau of Ethnology) 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, 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, 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, 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 the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History). In 1968, the SOA archives became the National Anthropological Archives.

## Contents

* 1 Research
* 1.1 Mound Survey
* 2 See also
* 3 References
* 4 External links

## Research

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 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: the Mound Survey (1882–1895); the Institute of Social Anthropology (1943–1952), and the River Basin Surveys (1946–1969).

### Mound Survey

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, 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 the Mound builders.

## See also

* History of Indigenous peoples of North America
* Native American history
* Moon-eyed people
* National Anthropological Archives

## References

* Fagan, Brian M. Ancient North America. Thames & Hudson. New York, 2005
* Hinsley, Curtis M. 1994. The Smithsonian and the American Indian: making a moral anthropology in Victorian America. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
* Hodge, Frederick Webb, and Corinne L. Gilb. 1956. Frederick Webb Hodge, ethnologist. Berkeley, Calif: University of California.
* Judd, Neil Merton. The Bureau of American Ethnology; a partial history. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967.
* Thomas, Cyrus. Report on the mound explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology. Pp. 3–730. Twelfth annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1890–91, by J. W. Powell, Director. XLVIII+742 pp., 42 pls., 344 figs. 1894.
* Woodbury, Richard B., and Nathalie F. S. Woodbury. "The Rise and Fall of the Bureau of American Ethnology." Journal of the Southwest, vol. 41, no. 3, 1999, pp. 283–296. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40170100.

## External links

* List of Publications of the Bureau of American Ethnology
* National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
* Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
* A History of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 1897–1997
* Digitized copies of the BAE Annual Reports at Gallica
* Digitized copies of BAE Annual Reports No. 1 - 15 at Biodiversity Heritage Library
* Digitized copies of BAE Annual Reports No. 16 - 81 at Biodiversity Heritage Library
* Digitized copies of BAE Bulletins No. 1 – 24
* Digitized copies of BAE Bulletins No. 25 – 200
* Register to the Records of the Bureau of American Ethnology, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
* Index of BAE Publications online, at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Research Laboratories of Archaeology, Archives.

* Lewis, Herbert S., 2022. “American Anthropology and Colonialism: A Factual Account”, in BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris.
* Bruce Smith video on the 1880s Smithsonian BAE Mound Survey explorations to determine who built the ancient earthen mounds in eastern North America can be viewed as part of series 19th Century Explorers and Anthropologists: Developing the Earliest Smithsonian Anthropology Collections

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* t
* e

Pre-Columbian North America

Periods
Lithic
Archaic
Formative
Classic
Post-Classic

Archaeological
cultures|

* Adena
* Alachua
* Ancient Beringian
* Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi)
* Baytown
* Belle Glade
* Buttermilk Creek Complex
* Caborn-Welborn
* Calf Creek
* Caloosahatchee
* Clovis
* Coles Creek
* Comondú
* Deptford
* Folsom
* Fort Ancient
* Fort Walton
* Fremont
* Glacial Kame
* Glades
* Hohokam
* Hopewell
* List of Hopewell sites
* La Jolla
* Las Palmas
* Leon-Jefferson
* Maritime Archaic
* Mississippian
* List of Mississippian sites
* Mogollon
* Monongahela
* Old Cordilleran
* Oneota
* Paleo-Arctic
* Paleo-Indians
* Patayan
* Plano
* Plaquemine
* Poverty Point
* Red Ocher
* Safety Harbor Culture
* Santa Rosa-Swift Creek
* St. Johns
* Steed-Kisker
* Tchefuncte
* Troyville
* Weeden Island

Archaeological
sites|

* Angel Mounds
* Anzick Clovis burial
* Bandelier National Monument
* Bastian
* Benson
* Blue Spring Shelter
* The Bluff Point Stoneworks
* Brewster
* Cahokia
* Candelaria Cave
* Casa Grande
* Chaco Canyon
* Coso Rock Art District
* Crystal River Archaeological State Park
* Cuarenta Casas
* Cueva de la Olla
* Eaker
* El Fin del Mundo
* El Vallecito
* Effigy Mounds National Monument
* Etowah Indian Mounds
* Eva
* Folsom Site
* Fort Ancient
* Fort Center
* Fort Juelson
* Four Mounds
* Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
* Glenwood
* Grimes Point
* Holly Bluff Site
* Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
* Horr's Island
* Huápoca
* Key Marco
* Kimball Village
* Kincaid Mounds
* Kolomoki Mounds
* Lake Jackson Mounds
* L'Anse aux Meadows
* Marksville
* Marmes Rockshelter
* Meadowcroft Rockshelter
* Mesa Verde
* Moaning Cavern
* Moorehead Circle
* Morrison Mounds
* Moundville
* Mummy Cave
* Nodena Site
* Ocmulgee National Monument
* Old Stone Fort
* Orwell Site
* Paquime
* Parkin Park
* Pinson Mounds
* Portsmouth Earthworks
* Poverty Point
* Pueblo Bonito
* Recapture Canyon
* Rock Eagle
* Rock Hawk
* Rosenstock Village Site
* Russell Cave National Monument
* Salmon Ruins
* Serpent Mound
* Sierra de San Francisco
* Spiro Mounds
* SunWatch
* Taos Pueblo
* Toltec Mounds
* Town Creek Indian Mound
* Turkey River Mounds
* Upward Sun River site
* Velda Mound
* West Oak Forest Earthlodge
* Windover
* Winterville
* Wupatki National Monument

Human
remains|

* Anzick-1
* Arlington Springs Man
* Buhl Woman
* Kennewick Man
* La Brea Woman
* Leanderthal Lady
* Melbourne Man
* Minnesota Woman
* Peñon woman
* Spirit Cave mummy
* Vero man

Miscellaneous|

* Aridoamerica
* Black drink
* Ceremonial pipe
* Chunkey
* Clovis point
* Container Revolution
* Eastern Agricultural Complex
* Eden point
* Effigy mound
* Falcon dancer
* Folsom point
* Green Corn Ceremony
* Horned Serpent
* Kiva
* Medicine wheel
* Metallurgy
* Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing
* Mound Builders
* N.A.G.P.R.A.
* Norse colonization of North America
* Oasisamerica
* Piasa
* Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
* Stickball
* Three Sisters agriculture
* Thunderbird
* Underwater panther
* Water glyphs

Related
Genetic history
Pre-Columbian era

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