Anthropology - Artifacts - Collections - Milwaukee Public Museum

Aztalan Collection: Aztalan is the largest and most significant archaeological site in the State of Wisconsin. Located on the Crawfish River in south-central Wisconsin, it is near the town of Lake Mills, about fifty miles west of the City of Milwaukee.

Bandolier Bag Collection: Bandolier bags are large, heavily beaded pouches with a slit at the top. They have a beaded strap worn diagonally over the shoulder, thus resting the bag at hip level. The design is created using glass beads, a European trade good that replaced the traditional porcupine quills. The bags themselves are typically constructed from trade cloth, such as cotton, wool, velvet, or leather.

Cudahy-Massee Expedition: The Cudahy-Massee Expedition was the brainchild of Milwaukee Public Museum director, Dr. Samuel A. Barrett. Barrett wished to broaden the museum's collections and help foster understanding about life in, what was at the time, British East Africa.

Lake Amatitlán, Guatemala Collection: Former Milwaukee Public Museum director Dr. Stephan F. de Borhegyi was an avid scholar of all things Mesoamerican. In particular, he spent many years studying archaeological finds left by the ancient Maya in and around Lake Amatitlán, Guatemala.

Mambilla Collections: The Mambila (Mambilla) are an agricultural people living on a plateau straddling the Cameroon/Nigerian border in Africa. The Milwaukee Public Museum is proud to be the caretaker for the Mambila collection, the largest outside of West Africa.

Old Copper Culture: The Old Copper Complex, also known as the Old Copper Culture, refers to the items made by early inhabitants of the Great Lakes region during a period that spans several thousand years and covers several thousand square miles.

Philippine Basketry: The Philippine collection at the Milwaukee Public Museum contains 235 basketry items, a selection of which is shown here. Ten islands and twenty seven municipalities of the Philippine archipelago are represented in the collection. The collection consists of baskets, traps, and hats. All the materials were utilitarian. Baskets served to transport food to and from the fields, as well as to store food and clothing.

Scandinavian Archaeology: Scandinavia is a region in North Europe made up of Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The Scandinavian archaeology collection at the Milwaukee Public Museum is predominantly from Denmark. During the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, these three countries separated into three kingdoms. One area of Denmark, called Jütland, will be mentioned frequently because it is the origin of several artifacts of the collection.

The Dogrib: The Dogrib, or Tlicho (pronounced, "tlee-chon") as they call themselves, are members of the Athapaskan speaking Dene peoples. The Dogrib predominately reside in Canada's Northwest Territory between Great Bear and Great Slave lakes. This area is referred to as the North Slave Region and the Mackenzie Valley.

The Lacandon Collection: The Lacandon are an indigenous Maya-speaking people, numbering between 300 and 500 individuals, who live in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The Milwaukee Public Museum has a representative collection of Lacandon material culture totaling 113 objects and numerous photographs. Peter Thornquist collected the majority of the artifacts while visiting a Lacandon village in Metzabok, Mexico in 1979.

The Ledger Art Collection: Plains ledger art was a means of historical representation for the Indian peoples of the Great Plains during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the Plains Indians had no written language, they did have a long tradition of preserving oral histories pictorially.

The Sami: The Sami (alternately spelled Saami or Sámi) are one of Europe's oldest indigenous groups. They entered northern Europe from what is now western Russia in prehistoric times, before the Scandinavians, Finns, and Russians began to move in as early as the 9th century.