The National Anthropological Archives (NAA) collects materials that document the world’s cultures and the history of anthropology. The NAA was formed in 1968, with collections dating back to the Bureau of American Ethnology (formed in 1879). Together with the HSFA, we hold almost 20,000 feet of records from all fields of anthropology, including institutional records, fieldnotes, correspondence, images, maps, and recordings from around the world.
The Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA) provides access to over 8 million feet of ethnographic film. Started in 1975, we have been part of the Smithsonian Department of Anthropology since 1981, and hold films from filmmakers such as Timothy Asch, Jorge Preloran, David MacDougall, and John Marshall. The film archives supports research on visual culture, humans in the natural world, and the development of ethnographic film.
Both archives are open by appointment, typically Wednesday-Friday from 10am-3:30pm. Please schedule your visit well in advance, to ensure we have space and time to pull the materials you request, especially if they are stored offsite!
Donating to the Archives:
We are currently pausing the acqusition of new collections through at least September 2024, while we update the scope and focus on our archives. Feel free to reach out to our archivists at naa@si.edu or hsfa@si.edu with any questions, or to request a collections proposal form and donation guidelines to review.
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.
