The National Anthropological Archives (NAA) collects anthropological materials that document the world’s cultures and the history of anthropology, and connects these records with researchers and source communities. The NAA was formed in 1968, with collections dating from the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1879 and from Smithsonian anthropological research ging back to 1846. Its collections cross archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistics, and include fieldnotes, manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, maps, and recordings created by anthropologists at the Smithsonian and elsewhere, and by communities from around the world.
The Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA) preserves and provides access to anthropological moving image materials. The film archives began in 1975 as the National Anthropological Film Center, which both created and collected films of anthropological interest. The film archives promotes the importance of moving image materials as part of the anthropological record, supporting research on visual culture, humans in the natural world, and the development of ethnographic film.
This search guide will help you locate materials in our two catalogs: Collections Search, which searches across Smithsonian archives, libraries, and museum collections, and SOVA, which searches collections across the Smithsonian's 14 archives.
Subject Guides to Indigenous and Specialty Collections
These guides are intended to make it easier for you to find collections related to Indigenous languages and cultures. These are a snapshot from one moment in time. Because we are still cataloging and describing our collections, we may not yet know about every relevant collection completely and accurately. We welcome input from Native and indigenous community members to improve these guides, and will work to incorporate these edits into our catalog and access policies as we have staff capacity. Guides available to date include:
For questions about research, donating collections, or donating to support the archives, reach out to our archivists at naa@si.edu (or 301-238-1310), or to our film archivists at hsfa@si.edu.
