ANT 104: Cultural Anthropology

The American Folklife Center Reading Room is open for in-person visits Monday-Friday, 8:30am-5:00pm. Researchers are encouraged to speak with reference staff prior to their visit, as many collections are stored off-site and require advanced notice for retrieval. To consult with a reference librarian, please call the reading room at (202) 707-5510 or submit an Ask-a-Librarian form. While appointments are optional, scheduling a research appointment will help ensure collection material is accessible during your visit to the Center. If you'd like to schedule a visit, please do so here. The Library of Congress asks all visitors to follow our COVID-19 health screening protocols, which are based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and the Office of the Attending Physician of the U.S. Capitol.

The Division of Anthropology is concerned with all aspects of human behavior—past, present, and with an eye to the future. Our work is biological, archaeological, socio-cultural, and linguistic.

Bishop Museum's Ethnology Collection includes more than 70,000 objects from throughout Hawai‘i and the Pacific region.

The Illinois State Museum System includes the headquarters museum and ISM-Research & Collections Center both in Springfield with branch sites ISM-Dickson Mounds in Lewistown, ISM-Lockport Gallery in Lockport.

The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology supports teaching and research on Classical, Egyptian, and Middle Eastern archaeology through stewardship of its rich collections, an active exhibitions program, and sponsorship of ongoing field research. The Kelsey houses a collection of more than 100,000 artifacts, of which approximately 1,500 are on permanent display; in addition, the museum mounts 2–3 special exhibitions annually.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by an Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans. To date, the Museum has collected more than 40,000 artifacts and nearly 100,000 individuals have become members. The Museum opened to the public on September 24, 2016, as the 19th museum of the Smithsonian Institution.

The National Museum of the American Indian operates three facilities. The museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC, offers exhibition galleries and spaces for performances, lectures and symposia, research, and education. The George Gustav Heye Center (GGHC) in New York City houses exhibitions, research, educational activities, and performing arts programs. The Cultural Resources Center (CRC) in Suitland, Maryland, houses the museum's collections as well as the conservation, repatriation, and digital imaging programs, and research facilities. The NMAI's off-site outreach efforts, often referred to as the "fourth museum," include websites, traveling exhibitions, and community programs.

Home to over a million extraordinary artifacts and archaeological finds from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Mediterranean, the Penn Museum has been uncovering our shared humanity across continents and millennia since 1887. In bridging archaeology, the study of objects made by humans, with anthropology, the science of humanity, we chart a course for finding one’s own place in the arc of human history.

Founded in 1901, the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology is dedicated to the study of cultures from yesterday and today, both near and far. Today, the Museum contains an estimated 3.8 million objects from California and around the world, as well as extensive documents, photographs and film recordings. We continue a legacy of enrichment and education, functioning as a research unit for the University of California, Berkeley by supporting scholarly discovery and community-based research. The American Alliance of Museums reaccredited the Hearst Museum in 2018.

The National Archives preserves and makes available documents created by federal agencies in the course of their daily business. Because the U.S. government’s interactions with American Indians and Alaska Natives have changed over time, knowing the geographic place and time period of your research topic will help create a more positive research experience. As you plan your research, consider this question: how does my research topic intersect with the U.S. federal government?

Under the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration, the Office of Trust Records manages a records and information program that upholds the legal obligation of the trust relationship between the Federal government American Indians and Alaska Natives. This office safeguards millions of original, historic documents describing the Federal government’s treaty obligations to Native Americans. We store most of these records at the American Indian Records Repository in Lenexa, Kansas.

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945. Currently made up of 193 Member States, the UN and its work are guided by the purposes and principles contained in its founding Charter.

The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) is the only organization representing the entire museum field, from art and history museums to science centers and zoos. Since 1906, we have been championing museums through advocacy and providing museum professionals with the resources, knowledge, inspiration, and connections they need to move the field forward.

Founded in 1902, the American Anthropological Association is the world’s largest scholarly and professional organization of anthropologists. The Association is dedicated to advancing human understanding and applying this understanding to the world’s most pressing problems.

We are an educational & scientific organization that aims to understand, conserve & inform about nonhuman primates.

Welcome to the Association of Environmental Archaeology (AEA). Explore these pages to find out more about the Association: our upcoming and past events, publications and other resources.

The Canadian Archaeological Association (CAA) was founded in 1968. Membership includes professional, avocational and student archaeologists, as well as individuals of the general public of any country, who are interested in furthering the objectives of the Association.

Cultural Survival advocates for Indigenous Peoples' rights and supports Indigenous communities’ self-determination, cultures and political resilience since 1972.

The mission of the Office of the State Archaeologist is to develop, disseminate, and preserve knowledge of Iowa's human past through Midwestern and Plains archaeological research, scientific discovery, public stewardship, service, and education.

The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is the world's longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology (the study of humankind) in its broadest and most inclusive sense. The Institute is a non-profit-making registered charity and is entirely independent, with a Director and a small staff accountable to the Council, which in turn is elected annually from the Fellowship.

The SAA is an international organization that, since its founding in 1934, has been dedicated to research about and interpretation and protection of the archaeological heritage of the Americas. With nearly 7,000 members, SAA represents professional and avocational archaeologists, archaeology students in colleges and universities, and archaeologists working at Tribal agencies, museums, government agencies, and the private sector. SAA has members throughout the U.S., as well as in many nations around the world.​

The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) is a section of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). We seek to facilitate the research and teaching of the anthropology of religion.

The Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) examines how aspects of culture can be visually interpreted and expressed, and how images can be understood as artifacts of culture.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.