4 Anthropological Collections

The University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History curates one of Oregon’s most significant collections of Native American historical and archaeologi-cal artifacts, which is comprised of more than 300,000 objects, spanning 15,000 years. The Oregon Legislature officially established the anthropological collections in 1935. They were integrated into the Museum of Natural History (now MNCH) in 1936, making it Oregon’s official anthropological repository. Perhaps best known for its 10,000-year-old sagebrush bark sandals, the museum’s archaeological holdings continue to grow through field studies undertaken by the MNCH Research Division and other archaeologists and agencies, often in conjunction with highway projects and other developments. Its anthropological col-lections and extensive holdings of fossils and biological specimens from Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, and around the world, make the museum a center of interdisciplinary research, preservation, and education. Exhibits and Collections On the map, Oregon is a small corner of the United States. Zooming in on the region, however, reveals an astounding physiographic diversity, matched by the cultural diversity of Native peoples. Members of Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes represent speakers of more than twenty languages, recorded even after genocide and introduced epidemic disease