CONTEXTS

The Annual Report of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology Volume 41 Spring 2016

About the Museum

The mission of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology is to inspire
creative and critical thinking about global cultures, past and present,
and to foster interdisciplinary understandings of the material world.
Established in 1956, it sponsors original research, innovative teaching,
and public education while stewarding a collection of over one million
archaeological and ethnographic objects. The Museum serves Brown
Universitys students and faculty, the city of Providence, the state of
Rhode Island, and the general public.
The Museums gallery is in Manning Hall, 21 Prospect Street, Providence,
Rhode Island, on Browns main green. The Museums Collections
Research Center is at 300 Tower Street, Bristol, Rhode Island.
Manning Hall Gallery Hours:
Tuesday Sunday, 10 a.m. 4 p.m.
Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology
Box 1965
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
www.brown.edu/Haffenreffer
www.facebook.com/HaffenrefferMuseum
(401) 863-5700
haffenreffermuseum@brown.edu
Contexts
Editor: Kevin Smith
Designed and produced in partnership with Brown Graphic Services.
2016 Brown University
On the covers: Front cover: The Road to Burque, ceramic vessel by Diego Romero, 1990s,
Cochiti Pueblo artist, Museum Purchase 2015. Back cover: Caddo-Lac-Babes, ledger art
by Dolores Purdy, Caddo Nation of Oklahoma artist, 2015. Museum Purchase with funds
from the Haffenreffer Special Fund and Barbara A. Hail. Courtesy of Dolores Purdy,
Dolores Purdy, 2015.

From the Director

This year is the 60th anniversary of the introduction

of anthropology to Brown University. In 1956, the
university hired J. Louis Giddings as Director of
the King Philip Museum, which had recently been
donated to the university by the family of Rudolf F.
Haffenreffer. This appointment was an auspicious
choice as Giddings soon established himself as a
pioneering Arctic archaeologist, ethnographer, and
environmental scientist.
During his eight years at Brown, Giddings founded
the Department of Anthropology and set the
core directions that still guide the vision of the
Haffenreffer Museum as a teaching and research
museum. He trained a generation of students in
northern fieldwork and worked collaboratively with
Native Iupiat colleagues in ways that transformed
our understandings of the Arctic past and present.
He also appreciated the importance of media
outreach in sharing the results of his research with
the public.
We are planning a major exhibition celebrating
Giddings anthropological contributions for the fall.
As a teaser, we installed a wonderful photography
exhibition curated by Kevin Smith entitled,
Northern Visions: The Arctic Photography of J.
Louis Giddings (1909-1964). These images provide
glimpses into the practice of fieldwork during
the mid-20th century, the evolving collaborations
between Giddings and indigenous Alaskan peoples,
and the birth of an holistic approach to Arctic
science. We encourage you to come in and view it.
In addition, Kevin Smith and Douglas Anderson
chaired a symposium entitled Envisioning and
Re-envisioning Arctic Archaeology: The Enduring
Legacies of J. Louis Giddings (1909-1964) at
the Society for American Archaeologys annual
meetings in Orlando, Florida. Some of the
presentations addressed new developments in
dendrochronology, studies of sea level history and
storm regimes, and beach ridge archaeology. There
was considerable interest in the session and we
hope to publish the revised papers as a book.
We enjoyed an active student exhibition
program this year. Jen Thum and Julia Troche,
graduate students in the Joukowsky Institute
and Department of Egyptology and Assyriology,
curated Uncovering Ancient Egypt: Ancient Crafts,
Modern Technologies. In collaboration with
Browns researchers in Egyptology, archaeology,
medicine, and materials science, they used modern
technologies to discover how objects in Browns
ancient Egyptian collections were made and used
thousands of years ago.
We also installed a new student exhibition in the
Stephen Robert 62 Campus Center. The exhibition,
entitled To Be Seen or Not to be Seen, is curated
by Abby Muller, president of the Haffenreffer
Student Group and a senior anthropology

concentrator. Her exhibit focuses on changing

display practices why museums choose to display
some things and not others and how they are
increasingly engaged with descendant communities
to create more culturally appropriate exhibitions.
Our collections continue to be used in the classroom
by Brown and RISD faculty. We feature in this issue
some of the creative ways that Matthew Reilly
(Joukowsky Institute), Linford Fischer (History), and
Tate Paulette (Joukowsky Institute) used objects
to convey nuances about concepts as diverse as
sovereignty, vice, and materiality.
We continue to receive generous donations from
faculty, alumni, and friends. We are especially
fortunate to have received a gift of ethnographic
objects and archival materials from Walter H.
Conser, a Brown graduate and the grandson of
Frank M. Conser, Superintendent of the Sherman
Indian School in Riverside, California from 1909
to 1931. There is growing interest in the history of
Indian education and the Indian school movement.
The Sherman Institute was one of the most famous
of these institutions.
Thank you for your continued commitment and
support for the Haffenreffer Museum.

Robert W. Preucel

Faculty and Student News

New Faculty Fellows selected

Five faculty fellows were selected for the

2015-2016 term. These are Sheila Bonde
(Department of History of Art and Architecture),
Paja Faudree (Department of Anthropology),
Bonnie Honig (Departments of Political
Science and Modern Culture and Media), Pat
Rubertone (Department of Anthropology), and
Joshua Tucker (Department of Music). All
faculty fellows will be using objects from the
Haffenreffer collections to enrich their teaching.

Past Director wins

Guggenheim Fellowship

Steven D. Lubar, a past Director and current

Faculty Associate, was awarded a Guggenheim
Fellowship in Anthropology and Cultural Studies.
The fellowship will support his work on a book
entitled Finding the Lost Museum about the history
and future of museums. He plans to interrogate
the structure and organization of collections as a
means of developing new conversations about the
role of museums in society.

Museum Studies Postdoc

takes new job

Christy DeLair has been appointed Assistant

Curator at the Longyear Museum of
Anthropology at Colgate University. The
Longyear Museum maintains archaeological
and ethnographic collections from North
America, Pre-Columbian Middle and South
America, Africa, Oceania, and Asia.

Faculty Fellows
Coordinator appointed

Michelle Charest has been appointed as a Faculty

Fellows Coordinator. Michelle is a graduate of the
Department of Anthropology and teaches at RISD.
She will also be working with the Haffenreffer
Student Group in planning their spring exhibition.

Research Affiliate appointed

Nicholas Carter has been appointed a Research

Affiliate. Nick is a Brown 14 anthropology
graduate specializing in the inscriptions and
writing systems of the ancient Maya and other
Mesoamerican cultures. He is also a Fellow at
the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American
Studies at Harvard University.

Joukowsky Student awarded

PreDoc Fellowship

Ian Randall has been selected for a Graduate

School Interdisciplinary Opportunity Research
Fellowship for the 2016-2017 academic year. Ian
is a doctoral candidate in the Joukowsky Institute
of Archaeology and the Ancient World and will be
teaching a new course on cultural heritage.

Department of Anthropology
Proctors appointed

Madeline Kearin and Omar A. Alcover Firpi,

graduate students in anthropology, were
appointed proctors for the Fall 2015 and Spring
2016 semesters, respectively. Madeline assisted
with digitization of J.L. Giddings photographic
collections, while Omar researched Maya weaving
technologies and spindle whorls from the
Scheffler collection.

Joukowsky Institute
Proctor appointed

Darcy Hackney, a graduate student specializing

in Egyptology, was appointed proctor for the fall
semester. Darcy worked with Professor Matt
Reilly to develop an exhibition at the Joukowsky
Institute related to his class on Ancient Vices
(see article).

Intern reappointed

Arianna Riva has been reappointed as an

undergraduate intern. She is working on the
Giddings photographic archives. She has been
scanning Giddings remarkable collection of
photographic images and creating a finding
aid of his images.

Carleton College Students

research Northeast/
Great Lakes collections

Wahsontiio Cross and Alexandra Nahwegahbow,

Carleton College graduate students working with
Ruth Phillips examined our Northeast/Great
Lakes collections last summer. Wahsontiio
focused on Haudenosaunee whimsees, bags,
moccasins, and clothing. Alex studied objects
related to childcare such as baby carriers,
mossbags, navel amulets, and baby wrappings.
They integrated these objects into the GRASAC
Knowledge Sharing database.

Staff News

Director surveys RISDs Native

American collections

Robert W. Preucel and Alexandra Peck, a

graduate student in the Anthropology
Department, have been contracted by RISD
to conduct a survey of their Native American
holdings. A sample of these will be placed on
exhibit and posted on the RISD Museums website.

Deputy Director receives NSF

Arctic Social Science Grant

Kevin P. Smith, along with colleagues at Portland

State University, Northern Iowa University,
the University of AlaskaFairbanks, and the
University of AlaskaJuneau, has received an
NSF Arctic Social Science Grant. Their project
Arctic Horizons: Social Science and the High
North is a multi-institution collaboration to
reassess national goals, potentials, and needs
of Arctic social science research for the next
decades. Emily Button Kambic has been hired to
coordinate the Brown workshop.

Deputy Director and Colleagues

receive University Seed Grant

Kevin P. Smith, along with colleagues Yongsong

Huang (Earth, Environmental and Planetary
Sciences), Andrew Scherer (Department of
Anthropology), and Peter Van Dommelen received
a University Seed Grant and supplemental
Undergraduate Training and Research Award
for six undergraduate student researchers for
their inter-disciplinary project Climatic and
environmental reconstruction using lipid biomarkers
in ancient bones: applications in archaeology,
anthropology, paleoclimatology and paleontology.

Deputy Director keynote lecturer

in Scotland

Kevin P. Smith gave a keynote lecture based

on his on-going research in Iceland at the 3rd
International St Magnus Conference in Orkney,
Scotland (April 14-16). The conference is
organized by the Centre for Nordic Studies at the
University of the Highlands and Islands.

Deputy Director chairs SAA

Session on J. Louis Giddings

Kevin P. Smith organized a session for the Society

for American Archaeologys 81st annual meetings
on the legacy of the Haffenreffer Museums first
director, J. Louis Giddings. The session included
presentations by several former Brown University
students and colleagues, including Anthony Belz,
Daniel Odess, Rebecca DeAngelo, Chris Wolff,
and Douglas Anderson.

Curator for Programs and

Education appointed to Tomaquag
Museum Board of Directors
Geralyn Ducady has joined the Board of Directors
at the Tomaquag Museum, located in Exeter,
RI. The Tomaquag Museum is the only Native
American owned and operated museum in Rhode
Island and is dedicated to educating the public
about Indigenous history, culture, and arts. This
is a three-year appointment.

Curator for Programs and

Education joins 1696 Historical
Committee

Geralyn Ducady joined the 1696 Historical

Committee, formerly the 1696 Historical
Commission. The 1696 Historical Commission
was created to develop a comprehensive AfricanAmerican history curriculum for Rhode Island
public schools from kindergarten through grade
12. Her appointment is in recognition of her work
on the Haffenreffer Museums curriculum for
teachers Sankofa: African Americans in Rhode
Island, published in 2012 and supported by the
Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, and
the accompanying outreach Culture CaraVan
program of the same name.

Registrar attends two meetings

Dawn Kimbrel attended the annual meetings

of the Association of Academic Museums
and Galleries and the American Alliance of
Museums in May. The former meeting focused
on Communities in Dialogue: Models of Best
Practices for Academic Museums, Galleries,
and Collections. The latter examined Power,
Influence and Responsibility. Both themes are
particularly relevant in light of the Museums
involvement with the new Native American and
Indigenous Peoples Initiative at Brown.

Office Manager retires

Carol Dutton has retired after serving as

Office Manager for eight years.

Greeter organizes Giddings

Archive

Anthony Belz is using his degree in archives

and library management to coordinate the
archives of former director J. Louis Giddings
in Bristol and created a finding aid available on
RIAMCO Rhode Island Archival and Manuscript
Collections Online.

Assemblages

To Search: Investigations of the Virtual

and Material Lives of Objects
Robert W. Preucel
Director
On September 25 and 26, the Haffenreffer
Museum and RISD Museum co-hosted a
symposium entitled To Search: Investigations of
the Virtual and Material Lives of Objects. This
program was part of the Assemblages Project
funded by the Mellon Foundation.
This two-day conversation examined the double
lives of objects their local, intimate, and
concrete quality as they reside in museums and
their global, ubiquitous, and permeable virtual
representations in digital media. It investigated
the structures of knowledge and emergent
network systems whose architectures and formal
characteristics facilitate our encounters with
objects. It also focused on pragmatics how the
epistemology of search can help transform
different educational contexts such as the
classroom and gallery. For this reason, we also
included workshops with mediated conversations,
creative examinations, and other exploratory
engagements led by Haffenreffer, RISD, and
invited facilitators.
The symposium was well attended, attracting an
audience of more than 100 people. The majority
were affiliated with RISD and Brown University.
The symposium also drew scholars and artists
from MIT, Harvard, Smith College, CUNY, and the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago; cultural
organizations such as AS220 and the Providence
Public Library; K-12 public and charter schools
in the Providence area; as well as independent
scholars and artists.

Among the highlights of the program were

two Critical Encounters panel discussions
that brought together art historians, an
anthropologist, and a practicing artist. The first
panel featured David Joselit (CUNY Graduate
Center) and Rosemary Joyce (UC Berkeley) and
was moderated by Jane South.
Joselit discussed his idea of epistemology of
search as articulated in his book After Art.
He regards this concept as a mode of thinking
where connections between different kinds
of information (whether images, texts, and
objects) take precedence over the meanings of
the information itself. He then proposed three
forms that are native to the epistemology
of search and that do different kinds of work.
These include the profile that he defined
as a means of extracting value from data/
information by objectifying it; the aggregate
that he considers to be characterized by scalar
asymmetries that could call for new principles
of collective action; and the dark cloud that
refers to strategies that have been developed to
resist informational accessibility.
Joyce spoke on the relationships between
archaeology and the New Materialisms.
The New Materialisms refer to the radically
heterogenous material turns in philosophy,
sociology, and political science. Inspired by the
insights of Karen Barad and Jane Bennet, she
drew attention to the importance of traces as
temporal and spatial indexes of action. She then
emphasized their dynamic qualities in pointing
to human and non-human agencies. For her,
traces, like Karen Barads phenomena, are better
ways to think about materiality than objects, as
such. She notes that archaeologists routinely
treat things as traces in the same way that
they treat static deposits as traces and for the
same reasons. That iterative connection, created
through the forming, movement, and dissolution
of materialities, leaves marks. She holds that
archaeology can offer the New Materialism a long
perspective in thinking about the iteration that
is sedimented in materialities even as they are
transformed or even displaced.
The second panel featured Ivan Gaskell (Bard
Graduate Center) and R. H. Quaytman (New York
artist) and was moderated by Vazira Zamindar.

L-R Ivan Gaskell, Vazira Zamindar, and R. H. Quaytman

Assemblages

Gaskell gave a presentation on Piet Mondrian,

focusing on his iconic work Composition
in Red White and Blue, completed in 1936.
He challenged the audience to develop an
understanding of it as an unstable thing
constantly subject to physical changes both
inadvertent and deliberate. He emphasized
that our apprehension of the work occurs
in contingent circumstances on museum
gallery walls or on the internet and that these
contexts form parts of matrices that influence
interpretation. Museum curators, gallery owners,
and collectors all make decisions that affect its
present condition and the character of the matrix
by which it can be known. He concluded that
because of this situation, each party needs to be
aware of the conditions of judgment.

Quaytman spoke on her study of Paul Klees

famous monoprint Angelus Novus. The
monoprint, created in 1920, displays a largeheaded, wide-eyed, birdlike figure with arms or
wings. Through her investigations, Quaytman
began to suspect that the work was built upon an
older print. After two years of careful research,
she demonstrated that Klee had used a 19thcentury print based on a portrait by Lucas
Cranach (1472-1553) of Martin Luther. Why
Klee made this choice is unclear, but it raises
interesting questions about hiding and revealing.
She concluded by discussing some of her own
recent paintings that take the visual interaction of
the angel and Luther as their theme.

Designing Education
Amy Leidtke
Mellon Teaching Fellow
During her Mellon Teaching Fellowship,
industrial designer and RISD educator, Amy
Leidtke, is examining how educators can look
to objects from different times, continents, and
cultures to teach students of all ages about
design thinking and design process. She is
focusing on making design accessible to people,
and sees great potential in the concept of using
the Museums collections to help ignite childrens
interest in culture, design, and engineering. Her
goal is to develop and design a STEAM-infused
unit for G5-8.

Child spending time examining an object, recording

observations, measurements, materials, and questions.
Photo by Amy Leidtke

Assemblages

Assemblages Mellon Teaching Fellows

The Assemblages Project promotes dialogue and critical discussion at the intersections of art,
anthropology, and materiality across the Brown and RISD campuses. One of the most important ways
we are accomplishing this goal is to share faculty through our Mellon Teaching Fellows program. Each
year of the four-year project, the Mellon Advisory Committee appoints one Brown faculty member to
work with the RISD Museum and one RISD faculty member to work with the Haffenreffer Museum of
Anthropology. The Teaching Fellows develop new curricula, create new exhibitions (either online or
in museum galleries), and/or lead teaching workshops. The new Teaching Fellows for 2016-2017 are
Jeffrey Moser (Brown University), who will be working with the RISD Museum and Masha Ryskin (RISD),
who will be working with the Haffenreffer Museum.

Jeffrey Moser is an historian of East Asian art

and culture at Brown University. He specializes
in the artistic and intellectual history of China
during the Song-Yuan era (tenth to fourteenth
centuries AD). His research focuses on the ways
in which sensory engagement with material
things transformed historical approaches to the
challenges of making, reasoning, and knowing.
His interest in the catalytic potency of objects
extends from the historical dimensions of his
research to the contemporary challenges of
university and museum education. Prior to
joining the faculty at Brown in 2015, Moser taught
at McGill University and Zhejiang University.
He is currently completing a book manuscript
entitled Nominal Things: Bronzes, Schemata,
and Hermeneutics of Facture in Northern Song
China. His research articles have appeared in the
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Journal of SongYuan Studies, and elsewhere.

Masha Ryskin has taught in the Division of

Experimental and Foundation Studies at RISD
since 2010. She is printmaker, painter, and
installation artist with a keen interest in music
and anthropology. Her work is exhibited nationally
and internationally. A political refugee from the
Soviet Union, she received a classical education
in painting before earning a BFA in printmaking
at Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA at
the University of Michigan, where she became
interested in textiles. Ryskin has participated in
a number of artist residencies world-wide and
is a recipient of numerous grants, including a
Fulbright Fellowship to Oslo, Norway, and the
Rhode Island Fellowship in Printmaking and
Drawing. Her project at the Haffenreffer Museum
involves examining ancient textiles from the
Andean region in order to assemble a teaching
collection for drawing and design courses.
Specifically, she plans to look at the symbolism
and role of patterns in Peruvian textiles.

Assemblages

The Complexity of Objects and

Recording Information
Sophia Sobers
Mellon Photography Fellow
At the Museum I have been testing the
possibilities of documenting objects in our
collection with 3D scanning technology to see
what possibilities it can add to a learning context.
As a photographer, the differences between 3D
scanning and photography as a means to both
capture and display information about an object
have been interesting to note, and I want to reflect
on what I have learned so far.
3D scanning lends itself well to capturing a large
amount of information about the physicality of an
object. It can record its basic geometric shape,
color, and texture, and translate this into a 3D
model easily accessible on a computer. While
this technology is great at recording some types
of objects, others present themselves with more
difficulty. Dark, shiny, reflective, and transparent
surfaces create problem areas for the scanner
to see, often leading to gaps of information.
Objects need to be evenly lit for an accurate
representation, while larger objects need more
space around the staging area to be able to
record everything.
Photography, on the other hand, gives you a more
controlled experience. Setting up the lighting,
background, and composition of the object for
the camera can allow specific details to be
highlighted for the viewer. There are usually no
missing gaps of information, unless the object
requires multiple shots.
Where photography falls short is in the
representation of an object only on a two
dimensional plane. Where 3D scanning falls short
is its inability to see certain objects or areas on an
object. But there is potential for 3D scanning to
add another element of interaction and learning:
allowing virtual interactions with objects that may
not normally get to be on display or are otherwise
not easily accessible for students.

Three early 20th century sowei or bundu

masks, used in womens initiation rituals by
Mende and Vai communities in Liberia and
Senegal, rendered through 3D scanning.
Interactive 3D scans of these and other objects
will be accessible through the Museums
website as our work progresses.

Public Service

The United Nations Global Colloquium

of University Presidents: Preservation of
Cultural Heritage
Robert W. Preucel
Director
Cultural heritage is at risk around the world.
Increasingly, we are seeing militant groups seize
and destroy World Heritage sites, often recording
the acts on video and rebroadcasting them on the
web. In the last year alone, ISIL has destroyed
both the Arch of Triumph and the Temple of Bel
at Palmyra in Syria. These acts and the global
outrage they have engendered are all highly
visible examples of the power of archaeological
sites and antiquities to shape international
discourse about heritage and politics.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon
has drawn attention to the global importance
of cultural heritage, the topic of the 8th Global
Colloquium of University Presidents convened
at Yale University from April 11-13, 2016. In
attendance were Presidents, Vice Chancellors,
and faculty experts from universities in Brazil,
Chile, China, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, France,
Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Peru,
Poland, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey,
the United Kingdom, and the United States. I was
invited by President Christina Paxson to serve as
Browns faculty expert.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon delivered the

keynote address, emphasizing that cultural
heritage defines our common humanity since
art, literature, music, poetry, and architecture
form common threads that unite all civilizations
and cultures. He further explained that cultural
diversity, like biodiversity, plays a quantifiable and
crucial part in the health of the human species
and that an attack on cultural heritage in one part
of the world is an attack on us all.
Stefan Simon, the Director of the Yale Institute
for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage was
one of the key organizers. He led the session
on Culture in Crisis which explored ways to
help inform the current situation with respect to
timely and efficient responses to looting, illicit
trade, the destruction of sites and urban fabric,
the humanitarian impact and loss of local skills,
crafts, and indigenous knowledge.

Established in 2004, the Global Colloquium of

University Presidents meets annually to discuss
a topic of immediate concern to leaders in higher
education at universities around the world, and
of particular and timely interest to the SecretaryGeneral and the international community. It has
addressed such topics as academic freedom,
the social benefits of research universities, the
role of science in meeting global challenges,
empowering women, working for and with young
people, and world health.

I gave a paper on Native American sacred

landscapes in the Cultural Diversity and Heritage
Preservation panel. My goal was to position
Native American concerns about cultural heritage
alongside international ones. I highlighted the
cases of Bears Ears in Utah and Oak Flat in
Arizona, both of which are unresolved as of this
writing. These cases foreground the ongoing
tensions and contradictions between federal,
state, corporate and tribal rights and interests.

Public Service

Looking to Arctic Horizons

Kevin P. Smith
Deputy Director and Chief Curator
This year, I received funding from the National
Science Foundations Arctic Social Sciences
Program for a collaborative project entitled
Arctic Horizons: Social Science and the High
North. Arctic Horizons joins Brown University
with Portland State University, the University
of Alaska-Fairbanks, the University of AlaskaJuneau, Northern Iowa University, and the
Jefferson Institute in a project to re-envision
the United States social science research and
funding priorities for the North. Arctic Horizons
received $497,095 in federal funding to bring
nearly 200 circumpolar researchers, scholars,
and community leaders to workshops at each
of the collaborating universities and a final
workshop at which the projects co-Principal
Investigators and advisory board will integrate the
projects findings.
Why is this necessary? Over the past 15 years,
the Arctic has experienced substantial social
and environmental transformations. Some are
on pace with predictions from the late 1990s, but
others have occurred much more rapidly than
expected. Many shifts in the Arctic are linked
to environmental change: changing sea ice and
snow cover, displacement of modern villages,
destruction of archaeological sites, questions of
subsistence food security, increased shipping,
tourism, and resource exploration with their
associated economic impacts (positive and
negative), to name just a few. Other changes in the
Arctic may be independent of changing climate:
continued loss of Native languages; high rates of
unemployment, domestic violence and substance
abuse; and the increased influence of social
media among and between isolated communities
of the high North being just a few of these.
While the North has often seemed remote and
marginal to global or US national interests,
Arctic people and environments are increasingly
connected socially, economically, and
environmentally to those living farther south. The
potential for a seasonally or permanently ice-free
Arctic Ocean, for example, opens possibilities
for new shipping routes shifting economic costs
and benefits for global markets, for expanded
exploitation of the circumpolar basins fossil fuel

and mineral resources, and for an attendant new

focus on the north as an economic and security
zone of strategic and tactical importance.
All of these transformations have impacts
not only on the United States northernmost
communities, but also on the global economic,
social, and cultural systems studied by social
scientists whose input provides information
needed for adequate strategies guiding policy and
community development.
NSFs Arctic Social Sciences Program is the
leading source of funding for U.S.-based
social sciences research in the Arctic, yet the
documents setting its research priorities were
last updated in 1999. Findings from Arctic
Horizons five regional workshops and on-line
input will be compiled into an updated vision that
will help NSF shape future Arctic social science
research priorities and inform Arctic economic,
environmental, and political policy development.
Regional workshops funded through Arctic
Horizons have focused on Integrating Past,
Present, and Future Ecodynamics in Arctic Social
Science Research (Portland State University,
February 7-9), Indigenous Scholarship in the
North: Decolonizing Methods, Models, and
Practices in Social Science Research (University
of AlaskaFairbanks, March 23-25), Uninhibited
Synergies: Connecting Humanities, Engineering,
and Social Sciences in Arctic Research and Public
Engagement (University of AlaskaJuneau,
March 31-April 2), and Integrating Theories,
Data, and Methods to Ascertain Local, National,
and International Relevance (Northern Iowa
University, April 14-16). Browns workshop (May
29-June 1, 2016) brings delegates from Finland,
Norway, Iceland, Canada, Greenland, and the
United States onto campus to discuss Integrating
Interdisciplinary Natural/Social Science Research
for Policy Development in a project that is a
local collaboration between the Haffenreffer
Museum, the Watson Institute for International
and Public Affairs, and the Institute at Brown for
Environment and Society.

Teaching

From Articles to Artifacts: Understanding

the History of Slavery Through Objects
Linford D. Fisher
Associate Professor of History
One of the great things about teaching at Brown
is the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. I
have taken several of my classes over the years
to see the displays in Manning Hall and use
specific objects from its collections. This has
included a first year seminar, Object Histories: The
Material Culture of Early America. Most recently,
Kevin Smith was kind enough to host my senior
seminar, HIST 1970B Enslaved! Indians and
Africans in an Unfree Atlantic World.
Throughout the semester we had been reading
various works that describe African and Indian
cultures and religions. Just a few weeks before
our trip to the Haffenreffer display area, we
read an essay by Jason R. Young, titled Minkisi,
Conjure Bags, and the African Atlantic Religious
Complex. It was immensely helpful to the
students, then, to be able to see in person an nkisi
nkondi, a statue full of nails (that are driven in, not
as curses in Voodoo, but more as prayers and
validation of oaths). More broadly, we were able
to view objects from the Kingdom of Benin on the
west coast of Africa, which played a central role in
the slave trade. Many enslaved Africans were
brought from the interior of the continent;
representing this region (although from a
later time period), we viewed a BaKuba belt
from eastern Zaire/Congo that was decorated
with cowrie shells and trade beads.
Crossing the Atlantic, we were able to
view some religious objects relating to the
practice of Voodoo, like the paket kongo
and spirit bottle, which connected to our readings
on the Haitian Revolution. These objects reminded
us of both the vast spiritual power represented
by the things themselves, as well as their deep
connections with African religious practices.
Afterwards, students remarked how helpful it was
to be able to view in person actual artifacts that
we had read about. Seeing actual thingsnot just
reading about thembrought this history to life
for them. One student said she actually felt a little
intimidated to be in the presence of such sacred
and powerful objects like we were messing with
the past and with spiritual powers. These kinds
of reflections reveal the power and importance of
teaching with objects, and why the Haffenreffer
continues to play a vital role on Browns campus.

10

Teaching

An Archaeological Exploration of
Materials and Making
Tate Paulette
Postdoctoral Fellow
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
What is this cord securing the stone blade to its
bone haft? Thats baleen the plastic of the preplastic world, the material that gave Victorian
corsets their shape and drove the 19th-century
whaling boom in New England. The students
in my course, Handmade: An Archaeological
Exploration of Materials and Making, were
surprised by the versatility of this keratin-based
material that hangs down from the top of a
whales mouth to catch krill. This was only one
of many insights that emerged from our recent
visit to the Haffenreffer Museums CultureLab.
Under the guidance of Chief Curator Kevin Smith,
we examined a collection of archaeological and
ethnographic objects from Alaska, most made
from animal products.
The students were split into groups, assigned
a selection of objects, and asked to assess the
material makeup and function of the objects.
The exercise encouraged a detailed observation
of object form and composition, a search for
hints of use-wear, and the kind of embodied
thinking that lies at the heart of the course.
Some confounding highlights included a
hollow, banana-shaped hide scraper, an atlatl
or spear-thrower, and pierced weights from a
bolas (a throwing weapon used to catch birds).
Multi-component objects, such as a harpoon
and bow drill, were particularly challenging
and drew attention to the issue of perishability.
For example, archaeologists regularly recover

stone tools in great numbers, but rarely the

associated organic hafts. We examined stone
scrapers from Alaska, whose ergonomic
bone and ivory hafts were shaped nothing
like what archaeologists typically imagine.
Another key issue for our class is choice of
materials. Were materials chosen for their
physical characteristics or other symbolically
or socially defined qualities? Can material
choices give us a glimpse into alternative
ontologies/cosmologies? Ethnographic objects
from Alaska provided a fascinating example:
weapons made of materials that were only
acceptable for the hunting of particular animals
(land mammal bone for land mammals, sea
mammal bone for sea mammals).
Our visit to CultureLab was perfect preparation
for two subsequent class meetings dedicated
to animal materials: one built around hands-on
experiments in making, and the second, around
case studies. The objects from the Haffenreffer
also provided the students with a valuable
introduction to that part of the material record
that often does not survive and gave them a
chance to think in a concrete and embodied
fashion about object functions, material choices,
social contexts, and the symbolic dimensions of
production and use.

11

Exhibitions

Uncovering Ancient Egypt: Ancient Crafts,

Modern Technologies
Jennifer Thum
Doctoral Candidate, Joukowsky
Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
Julia Troche
Instructor of History, Missouri State University
The exhibition Uncovering Ancient Egypt:
Ancient Crafts, Modern Technologies was an
interdisciplinary effort that brought together
collections from three different institutions at
Brown University: the Haffenreffer Museum of
Anthropology, the Department of Egyptology
and Assyriology, and the Joukowsky Institute for
Archaeology and the Ancient World. Co-curated
by Ph.D. Candidate Jen Thum and recent Brown
Ph.D. Julia Troche, the exhibition showcased
the ways that scholars at Brown use modern
research technologies to discover how
Egyptian objects at the University were
made and used thousands of years
ago. Ancient and modern worlds
collided in this exhibition, which
utilized some familiar technologies,
such as X-rays, CT scans, and
photographyand some less familiar
ones (e.g. Reflectance Transformation
Imaging)to reveal what materials
ancient Egyptian objects were made from,
how they were constructed, and what roles they
played in daily life.
Uncovering Ancient Egypt celebrated the unique
legacy of Charles Edwin Wilbour (1833-1896) and
the continued efforts of scholars in the Brown
community to seek answers to the mysteries of
ancient Egypt. The Department of Egyptology
and Assyriology is housed in Wilbour Hall, a
namesake of the man whose work gave life to
Egyptology at Brown University. His passion for
hands-on research continues at Brown today,
across disciplines and departments.
In curating this exhibition, Thum and Troche
employed novel approaches to museum education
and the display of broken and unprovenienced

12

artifacts. An account of their efforts will be

published in the November 2016 edition of the
peer-reviewed journal Advances in Archaeological
Practice. The exhibition was organized into various
zones, with each focusing on an active research
project that employed a modern investigative
technology (e.g. experimental archaeology,
medical imaging for mummies). The zones
introduced visitors to Brown graduate students,
postdoctoral fellows, professors, and other
researchers at the University, with their names and
photographs of them conducting their work, in an
attempt to humanize the archaeological process.
The exhibition encouraged visitors to participate
actively in the interpretation of museum research:
two hands-on elements that aided in cultivating
an environment of accessibility to the exhibited
artifacts and to archaeology generally were a
custom-made iPad interface, which offered visitors
greater insight into the objects and technologies
on display, and the Haffenreffers pre-existing
experiential learning program, CultureLab. A
monthly lecture series, Lunch with the Scholars
who Uncovered Ancient Egypt, kept the exhibition
alive throughout the academic year.
Visitor surveys conveyed overall positive feedback,
indicating that children, students, and scholars
alike enjoyed the exhibition. Continuing Education
actually expressed disappointment that the
exhibition would come to an end before their
Summer at Brown programs began, since they
wanted to highlight the exhibition as a unique
offering of Brown University. The exhibition was
celebrated in the Brown Daily Herald and in the
archaeology magazine Dig. Suffice it to say that the
exhibition was a great success; it certainly reached
and exceeded the expectations of its co-curators.

Exhibitions

Northern Visions:The Arctic Photography of

J. Louis Giddings (1909-1964)
Kevin P. Smith
Deputy Director and Chief Curator
In this, the 60th anniversary of the gift of the
museum to Brown University by the family of
Rudolph Haffenreffer, we are looking back on the
life and scientific contributions of J. Louis Giddings
through a symposium on his legacy at the Society
for American Archaeology meetings, an exhibition
celebrating his research to open in the fall, and an
exhibition of his photography, Northern Visions, that
opened in March, 2016.
Giddings was a pioneering Arctic archaeologist,
ethnographer, and environmental scientist who
became the first director of the Haffenreffer
Museum of Anthropology in 1956. Through an
archaeological career that spanned only 25 years,
Giddings used incredible insight, luck, and the
opportunity to be the first archaeologist to visit
many parts of western Alaska to establish the
cultural sequences that continue to guide western
Arctic fieldwork and interpretation to this day. It
cannot be emphasized enough how exciting the
times were during which Giddings was engaged
in archaeology: virtually every seasons work led
to new discoveries that completely transformed
then-current understandings of the Northern past.
Giddings research began with inter-disciplinary
collaborations that brought his natural scientific
research background into archaeological
fieldwork and changed then-current models of
Eskimo prehistory and Eskimo/Indian dynamics.
Through his ethnographic insights, Giddings
approached the archaeological record by
describing the objects and structures he found
according to their functional and ideological roles
within the community, and changes through time
in terms of adaptation to regional resources.
In doing so, he established an approach to

understanding the Alaskan past that integrated

direct historical analyses and analogies from the
ethnographic record with an adaptation-focused
perspective based in the natural sciences that
anticipated the New Archaeology of the 1960s and
70s by several decades.
Giddings also established protocols and
approaches for working collaboratively with
native Iupiat families as informants, colleagues,
and friends that continue as best practice models.
His friendships framed questions for him of
who owns the past and what responsibilities
archaeologists have to the people whose heritage
they are excavating...and to interpreting the past
in ways relevant to their own discipline. In this,
Giddings was often admittedly guided by necessity
he often had to work alone, employing Iupiat
families as assistants, guides, excavators, and
informants but through the tight connections he
developed with co-workers who became friends
and through his earlier ethnographic research,
he established bonds of friendship and trust
that endured through his life and colored his
understanding of the past.
In Northern Visions, we have displayed a small
sample of the vast photographic archive the
Haffenreffer maintains of Giddings photographs
from the field. These images, only a few of of
which have been previously published in his
writings, are seen here together for the first time.
These images provide glimpses into the practice
of fieldwork during the mid-20th century, evolving
collaborations between Giddings and indigenous
Alaskan peoples, and the birth of a holistic
approach to Arctic science.

13

Exhibitions

Questioning Drinking, Smoking, Gambling,

and Prostitution
Matthew C. Reilly and Laurel Darcy Hackley
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
A sailor smokes tobacco from a clay pipe in
an eighteenth-century port tavern; a West
Indian planter sips from a brandy bottle on his
sugar plantation. These activities bring to mind
hedonistic behavior associated with vice and
bad things, but these bad things are also
deeply entangled with broader themes of Atlanticworld economics, the movement of people and
things throughout the Americas, and the social
dimensions of colonialism.
This spring, with the generous support of the
Haffenreffer Museum, an exhibition entitled Bad
Things? Colonialism and Vice in the Americas
was installed at the Joukowsky Institute for
Archaeology and the Ancient World. As part of
a course entitled Bad Things: Archaeologies of
New World Vices, taught by Joukowsky Institute
Postdoctoral Fellow Matthew Reilly, the exhibition
challenges students and visitors to question the
nature of vice and why we think of certain things
or behaviors as inherently bad.
This exhibition emphasizes that throughout the
Americas, behaviors like drinking, smoking,
gambling, and prostitution were a significant part
of everyday life and carried social, economic,
and political significance. Colonial encounters
throughout the Americas catalyzed tremendous
cultural transformation for all parties involved,
and vices played a complicated role in the
construction and enforcement of colonial
dynamics. This often had tragic consequences,
particularly for the Indigenous populations and
enslaved Africans who were largely responsible
for the production of chocolate, tobacco, sugar,
and coffee.

14

Items on display include two queros for the

consumption of the Andean maize-beer chicha,
and Cameroonian gaming pieces similar to
those produced by the enslaved on New World
plantations. Tlingit gaming sticks from the
Pacific Northwest demonstrate the social and
cosmological significance of gambling among
Native populations, and a Great Plains calumet
tomahawk pipe references the ceremonial
dimensions of tobacco smoking. Reproductions
of English-made clay tobacco pipes and a French
brandy bottle exported to the Caribbean indicate
European participation in New World vice.
Each of these items from the Haffenreffer
Museum was carefully selected in collaboration
with Museum staff to demonstrate the
ambiguities that surround our own perceptions
of vice and bad behavior. The exhibition was
an instrumental part of the class, demonstrating
to students that these seemingly innocuous
items carry incredible cultural and historical
significance in complex colonial interactions
throughout the Americas.

Exhibitions

To See or Not To Be Seen

Abby Muller
Anthropology, Brown 16
At the beginning of April, my senior thesis
exhibit was installed in the Museums case
in the Stephen Robert 62 Campus Center.
Entitled To See or Not to be Seen? Changing
Museum Practices, it is about trends in
museum best practices and how they can be
enacted, particularly when objects are less than
straightforward to display. The exhibit displays
two such items and discusses a third.
The first is a Bangwa Night Society mask,
which both designates taboo spaces and itself
remains shrouded in secrecy regarding its
symbolism. The second isor rather are
two sets of tithu (Hopi Katsina dolls) made by
two different artists, Wilson Tawaquaptewa
and Manfred Susunkewa, who had differing
opinions about what types of information
about Katsinam [kachinas] were appropriate
to leave Hopi communities. Finally, the exhibit
discusses Haudenosaunee Grandfathers
(Iroquois False Face Masks). These masks,
due to a request from the Grand Council of the
Haudenosaunee, cannot be displayed at all. The
exhibit also touches on NAGPRA, the Native
American Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act, and what it means for museums, drawing
visitor awareness to the complex and evolving
relationships between museums and the
communities they represent and serve.
The exhibit is accompanied by a thesislength paper about museum best practices,
including a survey of literature on the subject
and critical reflections on how aspects of best
practiceslike attentiveness to visitor needs and
collaboration with source communitiesactually
play out in the development of an exhibit. Ive
been working on this project in one way or
another since last spring, when I developed the
plan for the exhibit over the course of several
visits to Bristol and through correspondence
with Haffenreffer Museum staff. The exhibit
would not have made it past a fleeting idea
without their expertise, support, time, and
assistance. Thierry Gentis, Kevin Smith, and
Bob Preucel in particular were instrumental in
guiding me through selecting objects and writing
panel text, as well as in talking through other
considerations of the exhibit.

This has been an incredible experience, and an

eye-opening one: When it comes to creating
museum exhibits, there are so many factors
at play and things to consider. The opportunity
to learn about those considerations not only
through research and writing but through the
actual creation of an exhibit has been amazing.
And I am proud of both of my products: my paper,
which expands at great length on what I learned
from this process, and my exhibit, which I hope
will lift the veil just a little and help museum
visitors realize that best practices and museum
processes are as complicated as they are.

15

Research

Manufacturing Desire: Cleto Yurina and his

Cochiti Figurines
Robert W. Preucel
Director
When I toured the attic of the Collections
Research Center in Bristol during my job
interview for the position of Director of the
Haffenreffer Museum in 2014, I was immediately
drawn to some unusual objects made of volcanic
tuff. I examined them and recognized them as
examples of the famous Cochiti stone idols
collected by L. Bradford Prince. In checking
the catalogue record, there was very little
information recorded I only learned that they
had been purchased by Rudolph Haffenreffer
during one of his
Southwestern collecting
trips in New Mexico.
L. Bradford Prince was
the Governor of New
Mexico territory from
1889-1893. He was
particularly interested in
Pueblo Indian sculpture.
He published a
monograph on the Stone
Lions of Cochiti, a pair of
life-size mountain lions
carved into bedrock and
now in Bandelier National
Monument. He regarded
these lions to have long
been recognized as the
most important specimen
of aboriginal sculpture in
the United States.
In 1886, Bradford and his
wife Mary began acquiring
small portable figurines
from Cleto Yurina of Cochiti Pueblo as examples
of prehistoric Pueblo Indian sculpture. Yurina
apparently claimed that he found the idols at
prehistoric ruins on the Pajarito Plateau. They
amassed a large collection and in 1901 donated 40
to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
In 1907, the linguist John Harrington gathered
oral history at Cochiti that shed new light on
the figurines. He learned that Yurina secretly
manufactured these idols in a canyon north of
Cochiti. Harrington wrote disparagingly of the
figurines saying the most casual examination of
the idols convinces one of their falsity. That there
is such an astounding number of them also belies
their genuineness.

16

Last summer, I visited the Smithsonian Institution

as a Summer Institution in Museum Anthropology
Faculty Fellow. I sought out the figurines from the
Prince collection. Unfortunately,
I discovered that most
were destroyed and
only three exemplars
were retained.
The Smithsonian
destroyed the majority
of the collections as
fakes. The catalogue
entry reads, it is
generally agreed by
archaeologists that
Governor Prince was
deceived by the Cochiti
Indians from who he
purchased these and
many similar idols.
The Haffenreffer
Museum has six
figurines, all which are
the tall standing idol
forms. They typically
have two widely spaced
eyes and two nose
openings; in some
cases, there is a simple
line that serves as a
mouth. Haffenreffer
was himself interested
in Native American
sculpture and collected
several prehistoric New
England examples. It seems
that he purchased these objects, probably at Jake
Golds Old Curiosity Shop, to provide geographical
breadth for his collection.
So why did collectors, like Prince and
Haffenreffer, desire prehistoric Native American
stone sculptures? Were they disappointed to
learn that some were not ancient, but rather
manufactured by contemporary Native people?
What motivated Yurina to make these figurines
in the first place? We may never know all the
answers to these questions. However, the
figurines reveal that the desire for authenticity
is deeply embedded in a romanticism about the
Native American past and that Native peoples
have sometimes manipulated this sensibility for
their own purposes.

Research

Toxic Beauty
Kevin P. Smith
Deputy Director and Chief Curator
In 2013, while excavating Surtshellir, a Viking Age
archaeological site located deep within a lava
cave in Icelands western highlands, my crew and
I recovered flecks of a beautiful golden material
apparently formed from thin, layered sheets.
Most were found near a cache of glass beads and
we suspected they were bits of gold foil exfoliated
from a type of gold-covered bead that is wellknown from Scandinavian Viking Age (9th-10th
century AD) sites.
Months later, on a return visit to Iceland, I
analyzed these flecks using the Haffenreffer
Museums X-Ray Fluorescence device (a handheld instrument that bombards objects with
X-rays to identify the elements they contain).
Expecting to find that the flecks were either gold
or fools gold, I was surprised and initially
baffled to see, instead, the signature of nearly
pure arsenic mixed with sulphur. What we had
found was orpiment, an arsenic sulfide (As2S3)
that does not occur naturally in Iceland.
The name orpiment comes from the Latin
auripigmentum, gold paint, as this highly toxic
substance was used in the ancient world and
through the Middle Ages to produce the finest
and purest yellow pigments. Small amounts of
orpiment came from sources in Italy, Greece
and Turkey; but the highest quality material
was obtained in bulk, at great cost, from the
mountains of Armenia, Iran, and Iraq. In Viking
Age archaeological contexts, orpiment has
been recovered as a pigment on the shields
of the Gokstad ship, a kings or noblemans
funerary boat buried in AD 901, and on furniture
interred ca. AD 950-960 in the great royal burial
mound at Jelling, Denmark. Our examples from
Surtshellir are the farthest traveled examples
of orpiment known from the Viking Age and add
to a growing body of evidence that the site was
under elite control.
This year, in Bergen, Norway, I located a large
piece of orpiment in museum collections from
14th century deposits excavated near the
medieval citys cathedral. Later, I identified
orpiment as the source of the brightest yellow
pigments illuminating Icelands most beautiful
medieval manuscripts, often paired with deep
reds made from orpiments toxic cousin, realgar
(As2S2). And, in preparing the Haffenreffer
Museums exhibit on Egypt, we discovered that
the Museums ancient funerary figures were
painted, quite literally, head-to-toe in orpimentand realgar-based paints.

These substances
added beauty to
sacred and secular
works of art but raise
interesting questions
about toxicity in the ancient
world. What health risks
faced those who quarried,
carried, prepared, or painted
with these minerals? Did those
who sold, used, or handled objects
painted with these shades experience
higher mortality rates? Did those who worked
with these minerals live in fear of them or find
ways to shield themselves from harm? Who
risked most laborers who quarried or carried
these minerals, artists who painted with them, or
patrons who handled the works? This is a case
where all that glitters is definitely not gold,
where ignorance can kill, and further research
can expand our knowledge of risks and toxicity
in the past.

17

Research

Wearing Many Different Hats

Michle Hayeur Smith
Museum Research Associate
My NSF funded research project Weaving Islands
of Cloth focuses on a comparative examination of
textiles as evidence for womens labour and roles
in the Norse colonies of the North Atlantic from
the 9th-19th centuries. This year, I expanded my
focus by examining and analysing Greenlandic,
Faroese, and Icelandic textiles and conducted
a pilot project in Norway to assess textile
collections from the town of Bergen, a hub of
North Atlantic trade in the Middle Ages.
In Bergen, it appears that up to 50% of the
3000 textiles I examined may be of insular
North Atlantic, rather than local, origin. Future
research will assess these initial impressions
and changes through time in the importance
of trade in North Atlantic cloth with Norway.
This pilot laid foundations for future research
collaborations with Norwegian colleagues at the
Bryggen Museum as well as with the University
of Georgias Center for Applied Isotope Studies
where we will undertake strontium isotope
analyses to assess the roles of Icelandic,
Faroese, and Scottish cloth in northern
European markets.
Turning to Norse Greenland, additional
headway was made on collections in Nuuk
and Copenhagen. A particularly productive
focus was an exploration of cloth
recycling in Norse Greenland. During
a visit in 2014 to examine Greenlandic
collections at Copenhagens National
Museum of Denmark, I took samples
from a unique collection of complete
late medieval garments that lay
preserved for 600 years in permafrost
at a site called Herjolfsnes. Among
these was a very famous hat,
known as the Burgundian Hat,
that had become iconic of the end
of Greenlands Norse colonies. In
the 1920s its excavator argued on
stylistic grounds that it had been
inspired by early 15th century
examples from the Burgundian
courts of Europe. Since then,
it has been used to infer that
close contacts existed between
Greenland and continental
Europe until Greenlands
Norse colonies disappeared in
the mid-1400s.

18

The Burgundian hat is made from multiple

patches and this year my colleague Jette
Arneborg and I decided to date several of these
to determine how old the hat actually was. The
dates we obtained from the body of the hat were
from the late 13th century, but the textiles used to
patch the crown of the hat were about 100 years
older, suggesting intense use, maintenance, and
recycling of textiles in this distant Norse outpost.
Our dating program now suggests that the
hats inspiration was not Burgundian after all.
Although garments from this site have previously
been interpreted as reflections of contemporary
European clothing, other sources suggested that
contact with Europe was becoming infrequent by
the mid-15th century. Our re-dating campaign,
along with others work, suggests that these
garments were not styles current in 15th century
Europe, but represent local North Atlantic
fashions that would have been considered archaic
to contemporary Europeans. The hat has shown
us, in fact, that some of the garments from
Herjolfnes may actually have been distinctly
Greenlandic, having more in common with styles
of dress found in other North
Atlantic colonies such
as Iceland and the
Faroe Islands. The
Burgundian Hat,
new discoveries,
new dates was
published in
March 2016 in the
Danish Journal of
Archaeology.

Research

House of Rock: New Research on a

Possible Maritime Archaic House in
Eastern Newfoundland
Christopher B. Wolff
Museum Research Associate and Assistant Professor of Anthropology,
University at Albany, State University of New York
Starting in the summer of 2016, Donald H.
Holly, Jr. (Brown, Ph.D. 2002) and I, with a
team of undergraduate and graduate students,
will expand our research project that focuses
on two sites, the Stock Cove and Stock Cove
West sites, located on the coast of eastern
Newfoundland. Together, these sites contain
evidence of more than 5,000 years of human
occupation. In past research at these sites
since 2008, we focused primarily on two
important components of Newfoundlands
prehistory, the Dorset Paleoeskimo (ca. 500
BCAD 900) and ancestral and historic Beothuk
occupations (ca. AD 1000AD 1829). Our
research has recovered thousands of artifacts
and documented a handful of structures from
these periods, in addition to artifacts that
document Maritime Archaic (ca. 6,000 BC1,200
BC), Groswater Paleoeskimo (ca. 1,800 BC200
BC), and European uses of the sites.
In 2012, geophysicist Thomas Urban, another
Brown alumnus, and I conducted groundpenetrating radar and electromagnetometry
surveys of the Stock Cove site and found
evidence of additional cultural features
distributed across the site, including many
that appear to represent structures. One of
these features is buried nearly two meters
below the surface. Based on sites stratigraphy
and this features form, we think it may have
been produced by Maritime Archaic peoples,
the first known inhabitants of Newfoundland,
who arrived there 5,000-6,000 years ago.

Combining this geophysical evidence with our

previous research at the Stock Cove sites, Holly
and I applied for and received a three-year
National Science Foundation grant to conduct
new excavations at the Stock Cove and Stock
Cove West sites. Our primary goal will be to
investigate the deeply buried structure and
other Maritime Archaic components located
there, and to re-examine extant museum
collections from prior investigations at these
and other, related sites. The inter-disciplinary
project will include archaeo-entomological,
geomorphological, and faunal analyses to help
us reconstruct past environmental conditions
and place the sites earliest colonization and
abandonment episodes into a higher resolution
ecological context that more accurately
coincides with those cultural processes.
Ultimately, we hope to expand what is known
about the peopling of North America by producing
better understandings of how settlement and
colonization processes continued and possibly
changed during the Archaic period occupation
of the continents far northeastern regions, in
particular as early Native American/First Nations
people discovered, explored, and settled the
island of Newfoundland. However, we hope that
this research will have broader implications for
understanding coastal and island colonization
and settlement processes, more generally, by
adding new information on the historical ecology
of subarctic islands and human-environmental
interactions in northern regions.

19

Collections

Implementing MuseumPlusRIA for Enhanced

Collections Accessibility
Dawn Kimbrel
Registrar
Although the Haffenreffer Museum adopted the
use of a collections management system decades
ago, the old software had limitations. Because the
collections and records are located 19 miles off
campus, distance poses additional challenges for
faculty, students, staff, or external researchers
interested in using these resources for teaching,
research, exhibits, or inspiration. This year, the
Museum migrated its collections data to a new
system, MuseumPlusRIA, a cloud-based collections
management system, that will allow the Museum
staff to improve physical and intellectual access to
the Haffenreffers collections.
In the spring, our staff participated in a two-day
training workshop that introduced the theory
and practice of searching, storing, and sharing
collections data. The sessions covered a range
of topics from performing searches, updating
object locations, linking digital images, and
creating object groups to managing complex
exhibit plans involving loan contracts and
educational events.
MuseumPlusRIAs reporting features have
already allowed HMA staff to transform existing
workflows and organize projects. For example, a
search of object groups created during the 201516 academic year measures faculty and student
use of the collections: 17 faculty members
requested 252 objects from the Collections
Research Center to use in classes on campus and
5 students requested 103 objects for research

20

and exhibits projects. These figures not only

document the use of the collection, but also
demonstrate how Museum staff must budget time
and resources to photograph, pack, and transport
the objects to support campus activities.
The reports may be saved from year to year,
streamlining communications with faculty.
A different search reveals that the current
system takes account of only 79,069 object
records with 16,298 images, although the
permanent collection includes an estimated
120,000 objects. The number represents a
benchmark. New records and digital images are
added daily to reflect the Museums holdings.
Eventually, an Archives Module will augment
MuseumPlusRIA to support ongoing efforts to
preserve connections between field notes,
photographs, and their associated objects. And,
in consultation with Brown library staff at the
Center for Digital Scholarship, the HMA staff is
preparing to make collections data discoverable
as machine-readable data sets using linked open
data to further extend its reach as a cultural
heritage resource.
The next phase of the MuseumPlusRIA
implementation project, designing a web
interface with a searchable portal, will open the
collections online to the worldwide community
and foster new opportunities for discovery,
research, and collaboration.

Collections

The Conser Collection

Thierry Gentis
Curator/NAGPRA Coordinator
The recent donation of 100 Native American Indian
artifacts by Dr. Walter H. Conser (Brown Ph.D.
81) represents one the most significant additions
to the Native North American Indian holdings
in the history of the Haffenreffer Museum. The
collection was begun by Dr. Consers grandfather,
Frank M. Conser, although Walter made
significant subsequent additions after he inherited
his grandfathers collection.
Frank M. Conser joined the Indian Office in 1897
and served, first, as Traveling Supervisor and then
Chief Clerk of the Indian Office, before serving
from 1909 to 1931 as Superintendent of the
Sherman Indian School in Riverside, California.
During his tenure with the Indian Office and the
Sherman Indian School, Frank Conser assembled
a diverse collection of Indian artifacts including
Pueblo pottery, Navajo textiles, Southwestern
and Californian baskets, as well as Plains Indian
beadwork. Walter Consers additions to his
grandfathers collection include Native American
Indian artifacts from the Southeast, Northeastern
Woodlands, and the Northwest Coast. His later
additions not only represent examples of artifacts
from areas not represented in the original
collection but also show the continuity of Native
traditions into the later twentieth century.

The Conser collection is significant not only for

its scope but also for its potential to expand our
understanding of Native American culture and
the history of Indian education in the United
States. Archival materials about the Sherman
Indian School accompanying the collection are
important documents that help to place this
collection into its historical context. We expect the
Conser collection will be an invaluable resource
serving the museums educational mission as
well as providing fertile opportunities for research
and exhibition.

21

Collections
22

New Acquisitions, 2015-16

The objects and images on pages 21-22 represent a small sample of the new acquisitions accepted by
the Haffenreffer Museum this past year. Although space prevents us from showing all of these gifts or
recognizing all of our donors, these provide a sense of the richness and diversity of the donations.

Gifts to the Permanent Collection

Diana Baker
Collection of dolls, roof cross, and textiles, Bolivia.
William Connell
Two stone sculptures, Zimbabwe.
Walter H. Conser, Jr.
Collection of one hundred Native American artifacts
and books.
D. Cesare Decredico

Koranic board, Nigeria; Container with lid, Cameroon;
Anthropomorphic stool, Burkina Faso.
E. Alan Gaines

Three ebony wood figures, Tanzania.
F. Thierry Gentis

Two dolls, Nigeria.
G. Sidney and Alice Goldstein

Collection of paper cuts, rubbings, calligraphy scrolls,
prints, paper money, paintings on bamboo and silk,
and posters, China.
H. Cornelia W. Lanou
Tapa cloth, Samoa; Blanket, Mali
I.
Rebecca More

Quilt, United States; Tea cozy, Jordan; Djellabah and
two dolls, Morocco; Ceramic folk art figure, Mexico.
A.

B.

C.

J.

K.

L.

Rhea Nersesian
Outfit, Guatemala; Skirt, Mexico; Mola, Panama.
Richard Salter
Collection of ten Pre-Columbian pottery vessels and a
19th c. seated Buddha figure, Thailand.
William and Michelle Tracy
Collection of nine jingle dresses, Canada and United
States.

Museum Purchases
M.

N.

Haffenreffer Special Fund

Bowl by Diego Romero (Cochiti Pueblo).
Haffenreffer Special Fund and Barbara A. Hail
Ledger drawing by Dolores Purdy
(Caddo Nation of Oklahoma).

Gift to Archives
O.

Loren Spears, Tomaquag Museum

Collection of promotional materials

23

Collections

Tools of the Trade: Spindle Whorls and

Textile Production among the Maya
Omar A. Alcover Firpi
Doctoral candidate, Department of Anthropology
Textile production was, and still is, an important
economic and social practice among the Maya.
We have ample ethnographic evidence from
skirts, belts, huipiles, tunics, blankets, and
other objects of varied textile production
and use. Today, in the highlands of southern
Mesoamerica, Maya weavers produce textiles for
personal consumption, as market products, and
as offerings to local patron saints. In highland
Chiapas specifically, Tzotzil Maya weave
different designs, colors, and textured textiles
that are not only esthetically pleasing but also
denote social differentiation within and among
their communities.
Due to harsh preservation conditions in the
lowlands, ancient Maya textiles are rarely
recovered from archaeological contexts. In spite
of this, we can still attest to the importance
of textiles through the material remains of
its production. Spindle whorls, bone needles,
and picks, as well as other ceramic and stone
implements were used in the production of
textiles. These materials have been recovered
from elite and non-elite households alike.
Although there is room for further interpretation,
spindle whorls are currently considered elements
within a gendered practice of textile production,
where both elite and non-elite women crafted a
variety of textiles.
The recently acquired Scheffler collection at
the Hafferenffer Museum of Anthropology
includes a diverse array of spindle whorls. With
floral and geometric decorative motifs, the
collection presents a varied sample of these
textile production tools. Made out of ceramic
or stone, many evidence traces of orange, blue,
black, white, and red slips. Varying in size and
decoration, these spindle whorls were probably
used in different phases of the textile production
process or to produce threads of different
thickness and tension. While the final product
does not survive the passing of time, these tools
of the trade highlight the important role of textiles
in ancient Maya culture.

24

Collections

The J. Louis Giddings

Archive Project: Preserving a
Legacy of Arctic Archaeology
Anthony M. Belz
Our primary focus in the Museums
archives this year has been
organizing the records of our
first director, J. Louis Giddings.
Files in the Circumpolar
Laboratory added an entirely
new component to his archival
collection, documenting the
depth and extent of Giddings
research in the Arctic.
These not only document
his discoveries but also
the way he conducted his
research. The archive
includes hundreds of
unpublished photographic
prints, field journals and
notes, unpublished or draft
manuscripts, research
notes, dendrochronological
data, correspondence,
maps, images and figures
prepared for publication,
photographic plates of
artifacts, two hundred glass
plate negatives, and
publicity photographs.
Integrating this
material into the
existing Giddings
archive has nearly
doubled the amount
of material available
for research into
the life of this Arctic
archaeological
pioneer and has
given the museum
a new perspective on his
enduring legacy, fifty years after his untimely
death. In April 2016, I presented an overview of
this new archive of Giddings work at the 81st
annual meeting of the Society for American
Archaeology in Orlando, Florida. A complete
inventory of the Giddings collection will be
available through the Rhode Island Archival
and Manuscript Collections Online (RIAMCO)
online this summer and can be found at: http://
www.riamco.org/render.php?eadid=US-RiBrHMAmsJLG&view=title

Rip
Gerry
This year, I guided
student interns and proctors
scanning binders of J. Louis Giddings
slides and photographs, carefully
digitized newspaper clippings, and
began making sense of stacks of 16 mm
film cans, containing footage unseen
for nearly 50 years and with cryptic
notes only hinting at their contents. It
will be exciting to discover what is on
that celluloid! For now, the material
has been re-housed in secure, acid-free
environments and plans are underway to scan
items that have yet to be digitized.

Arianna Riva
Looking at all the scenes of Arctic summer
portrayed in the slides I scanned was oddly
fitting during this mild New England winter.
In between loading Giddingss slides into
the scanner, I read his book, Ancient
Men of the Arctic. It was wonderful to
read his own accounts of his fieldwork
while looking through the images that
illustrated these accounts; a few of
the slides I was scanning were printed,
in black and white, in the book. Amid
countless archaeological photographs
of what, to me, looked simply like dirt,
there were beautiful scenic snapshots of
mountains and water, of crew and friends
at work, as well as a number of aerial
photographs. All this accounted for, I feel
as though I have a number of vivid entry
points into Giddingss experiences during his work
in the Arctic and of the landscape itself, ranging
from an eagles eye view, down to, quite literally,
the grains of sand on the ground.

25

Education

Lectures and Public Programs

Geralyn Ducady
Curator for Programs and Education

This has been a busy year for public lectures.

The exhibit Uncovering Ancient Egypt opened on
October 1, 2015 with curators Jen Thum and Julia
Troche. Through the academic year we hosted
a series, Lunch with the Scholars who Uncovered
Ancient Egypt, co-sponsored with the Department
of Egyptology and Assyriology, in which scholars
involved with the exhibit discussed their work
and took participants through their processes of
exploring ancient artifacts and the people who
made them. These six talks were:
On October 21, 2015 James P. Allen (Charles
Edwin Wilbour Professor of Egyptology,
Department of Egyptology and Assyriology, Brown
University) opened the series and spoke about the
translation of ancient texts.
November 11, 2015 Miriam Mller (Postdoctoral
Fellow at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology
and the Ancient World, Brown University) spoke
about the study of daily life and her interpretation
of the exhibits wooden rower figure.
December 2, 2015 Kathryn Howley (Lecturer,
Department of History of Art and Visual Culture,
Rhode Island School of Design) spoke about her
work with shabtis, figurines that were placed in
tombs to perform tasks for the tomb owner in
the afterlife.
February 17, 2016 Laurel
Bestock (Vartan Gregorian
Assistant Professor
of Archaeology and
the Ancient World and
Egyptology and Assyriology
at the Joukowsky Institute
for Archaeology and the
Ancient World) spoke about
experimental archaeology
and working with different
types of stone.

March 16, 2016 Scott Collins (Lead CT

Technologist, Rhode Island Hospital) and Derek
Merck (Assistant Professor of Diagnostic
Imaging, Alpert Medical School) spoke about their
experience taking scans of the ibis mummy.

26

April 13, 2016 Jen Thum (Ph.D. candidate at

the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and
the Ancient World) closed the series with a
demonstration of RTI (Reflectance Transformation
Imaging) and her work on the Museums Old
Kingdom relief block.
Carla Sinopoli (Curator
of Asian Archaeology and
Ethnology in the University
of Michigan Museum of
Anthropological Archaeology,
Professor of Anthropology,
and Director of the Museum
Studies Program at the
University of Michigan) joined
us as the Jane Power Dwyer
Memorial Lecturer on October 8 with Exploring
the Collections: An Anthropologist in the University
Museum Storeroom.
On October 17, student docents gave tours and
led activities for the Archaeological Institute of
Americas International Archaeology Day.
Gloria ONeill (President and CEO, Cook Inlet
Tribal Council) visited on October 22 to speak
about the Never Alone video game in Storytelling
for the Next Generation: Harnessing the Power of
Video Games to Share and Celebrate Cultures.

Douglas and Wanni Anderson (emeritus

professors of Anthropology, Brown University)
screened Igliqtiqsiugvigruaq [Swift Water Place],
a short film about their collaborative work with
Iupiat communities on Alaskas Kobuk River
and added commentary in a talk titled Eskimo
Life at the Dawn of European Contact: Clues from
Northwest Alaska.

Education

On November 10, William

Simmons (Professor of
Anthropology, Brown
University) gave a gallery
talk entitled Parting
Reflections on the 250th
Exhibit, In Deo Speramus:
The Symbols and Ceremonies
of Brown University.
On November 11, Jessica R.
Metcalfe (Turtle Mountain
Chippewa), the Barbara
Greenwald Memorial Arts
Program speaker, spoke
about her blog and boutique
of Native fashion in More than
Just a Trend: Beyond Buckskin
and Native American Fashion.
The spring semester had a tasty kick-off on
February 15 with a talk by Kathryn Sampeck
(Associate Professor of Anthropology at
Illinois State University), How Chocolate Came
to Be, followed by a chocolate tasting with
Taza Chocolate.
On February 25, Joshua Bell (Curator of
Globalization, Smithsonian Institution/National
Museum of Natural History) gave the Shepard
Krech III Lecture:This wonderful new carving
Constructing Histories through Collections from the
Papuan Gulf of Papua New Guinea.

Luis Jaime Castillo Butters

(Professor of Archaeology,
Pontificia Universidad
Catlica del Per) joined us
on March 8 to speak about
Drones and 3D Modeling in
Archaeology.

On March 10, Bruce

Bernstein (Ralph T. Coe
Foundation for the Arts)
spoke as the Barbara
A. and Edward G. Hail
Lecturer on Ted Coe and
Collecting Native Art: Good
Eye and Pie.
On March 17, we cosponsored a lecture with the Bell Gallery by
artist Nicholas Galanin, a multi-disciplinary
artist and musician of Tlingit, Unangax
, and
non-Native ancestry.
Suzan Harjo, (President of
the Morning Star Institute)
spoke on March 22 about
Reclaiming Space on a
Colonized Campus. This talk,
part of the Native American
Heritage Series at Brown was
co-sponsored by the Center
for the Study of Race and
Ethnicity in America.
On April 14, Anna Sofaer
(The Solstice Project)
screened her film The
Mystery of Chaco Canyon
and followed with
commentary.

On April 21, Ann M. Kakaliouras (Associate

Professor of Anthropology, Whittier College)
presented The Making of Anthropologys American
Indian: Ale Hrdlickas Anthropometry.

Most lectures were recorded and can be

found in our playlist on Brown Universitys
YouTube Channel.

27

Education

Reaching Out to Communities and Schools

Geralyn Ducady
Curator for Programs and Education
Our van-based Culture CaraVan outreach program
is going strong thanks to outreach coordinator
Kathleen Silvia. Using the Museums education
collection, eight programs travel to K-12 schools,
libraries, homeschool groups, summer camps,
and adult community groups. Seven curriculum
packets for teachers complement our outreach
programs on the Museums website. School and
adult groups visit our gallery on campus, with an
increase in groups coming to see the Uncovering
Ancient Egypt exhibit.
Geralyn Ducady and education intern Luiza Silva
continued the Haffenreffer Museums partnership
with the Brown/Fox Point Early Childhood
Education Center. Students at the school had
hands-on experiences with objects from the
education collections in class and at the Museum.

28

Geralyn, Luiza, Niyo Moraza-Keeswood, Nicole

Larrondo, and team members from the
Joukowsky Institute and the RISD Museum led
our seventh year of the sixth-grade Think Like an
Archaeologist program. In addition to teachers
and students at Nathan Bishop, Nathanael
Greene, Governor Christopher Del Sesto, and
Roger Williams Middle Schools, two new
teachers who work with English Language
Learners (ELL) joined the project. Nicole
translated program worksheets into Spanish and
taught parts of the program in Spanish.

Students and Interns

Education Intern Reflections

Leah Burgin
M.A. candidate, Public Humanities

My work this semester explored how the HMA

can develop its nascent student docent program
in a reciprocal relationship between students
and the Museum. Through conversations with
student docent program coordinators at twelve
university museums and meetings with interested
undergraduates, I synthesized a variety of
perspectives and approaches into one simple
realizationno best model exists; the most
successful student docent programs fit the
idiosyncratic nature of an individual institution.
With these results in mind, Geralyn Ducady and
I brainstormed ways to integrate the Museums
specific needs and resources with students
expressed interests and time. We developed
several logistical strategies that will be launched
in Fall 2016 and further refined through feedback
and evaluation. In preparation for the launch, I
drafted training modules, gathered a library of
resources, and built a Google Site.
We hope that the student docent program,
rebranded MUSE (the Museums Union of
Student Educators), will be an extracurricular
experience of relevance to students current
lives and future goals. We hope that, through
MUSE, the HMA will gain ambassadors to the
on-campus community and help cultivate the
next generation of museum professionals.

Luiza Osorio G. da Silva

Egyptology and Archaeology and
the Ancient World, Brown 18

My work with the Think Like an Archaeologist

program this year was eye-opening in many ways.
When I started, I didnt expect to learn much
myself I thought Id be the one disseminating
information and sharing a bit about this field that I
love so much. However, I think I ended up learning
just as much as the students did. Their often
amusing but surprisingly astute observations
reminded me how important it is to keep an
open mind, especially in a field where so much
is uncertain and difficult to examine or prove.
Furthermore, the excitement and fascination with
which we were often greeted when introducing
new archaeological topics and activities reminded
me why I chose to study this dynamic and
engrossing subject in the first place. Finding ways
to make archaeology not only understandable
but also relevant to younger students helped
me to think about why the discipline can be
important in our modern society. I hope my efforts
demonstrated how important this field is to the
world and to me, and I am thankful to have had
the opportunity to do so!

This internship was funded as a Community Job

by the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public
Humanities and Cultural Heritage.

29

Students and Interns

30

Nicole Larrondo
MA Candidate in Public Humanities, Brown 16
During the last two semesters I had the incredible opportunity to
be a part of the Think Like an Archeologist team. In this program, we
provide sixth grade classes four sessions and a visit to the museum
to learn about what archeologists do before, during, and after
excavating sites. For the students, it was an exciting adventure
inside the classroom. They were provided opportunities to learn
by doing puting their hands on different artifacts and describing,
analyzing, and drawing conclusions. The students learned not
just social studies, but also a set of soft and hard skills such as
teamwork, respect for others, synthesis, and systematization of
work that can help them across disciplines and beyond school.
My favorite session was the digging activity, because we were able
to help them and be with them during the process of discovering
a new artifact. From stone tools to bones, discussions arose
around materiality, form, size, and age before they were mapped.
I was really motivated by the ELL (English Language Learners)
students inside the classrooms and the many challenges that
surface when trying to teach in a culturally diverse space. Many
of the vocabulary words and worksheets had to be translated to
meet these students language needs, allowing them to engage
with the program. Occasionally, conversations led to discussions
about where they came from and how experiences or objects in the
program related to their own experiences and what they have been
learning. I appreciate Think Like an Archaeologist because its an
interdisciplinary way of teaching. With its flexible curriculum, the
program nurtures each students capability to learn!

Students and Interns

Fermenting Concepts
Abby Muller, Brown 16 and Arianna Riva, Brown 16
Haffenreffer Student Group
The Haffenreffer Student Group has been hard
at work on our upcoming exhibit on the topic of
brewing. This winter, we took a trip down to the
Museums Collections Research Center in Bristol,
RI to go through the collection spaces, discuss our
plans, and select objects for display. We examined
myriad examples of cups, sieves and flasks from
diverse geographical and temporal contexts,
all used for beer brewing or consumption; we
selected the most special or intriguing to us
for further research. Weve had plenty of labelbrainstorming meetings and were full of ideas for
object presentation and decoration of the exhibit
space. Our group has begun to hold our weekly
meetings in the Museums gallery in Manning Hall
so that we can better visualize our work as we
draw closer to opening day.

Three of us are graduating seniors, so organizing

the exhibit has been a particularly special project.
Through it we feel like we are culminating our
time with the group and the museum, as well
as passing on the torch to our companions who
will lead the group next year and into the future.
This exhibit will be a wonderful collaborative
venture for our group and we are very grateful to
the Haffenreffer Museum for supporting us and
assisting us with this project and many others.

31

Acknowledgements

Grants and Awards

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
National Science Foundation, Arctic Social Sciences
Brown University, Office of the Vice President for Research
Rhode Island Foundation, Haffenreffer Family Fund
Rhode Island Foundation, Samuel Cate Fund

Institutional Partners
National Museum of Scotland
Danish National Museum/Nationalmuseet
National Museum of Iceland/jminjasafn slands
Historical Museum of the Faroe Islands/Froya Fornminnissavn
Greenland National Museum/Nunatta Katersugaasivia/Grnlands Nationalmuseum
rni Magnsson Institute for Icelandic Studies/Stofnun rna Magnssonar slenskum Frum
Centre for Nordic Studies, University of the Highlands and Islands, Orkney College
The Cultural Heritage Agency of Iceland/Minjastofnun slands
Icelandic Institute of Natural History/Nttrufristofnun slands
Icelandic Archaeological Institute/Fornleifastofnun slands
Bryggens Museum - Bymuseet i Bergen
University of Iceland/Hskli slands
Smithsonian Institution, Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Cochiti Pueblo

Rhode Island Partners

Tomaquag Museum
Rhode Island Historical Society
Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art
Brown/Fox Point Early Childhood Education Center, Inc.
Providence Public Schools
Gallery Night Providence

Brown University Partners

Haffenreffer Student Group
John Carter Brown Library
Department of Anthropology
Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage
The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Institute at Brown for Environment and Society
Native American and Indigenous Studies at Brown
David Winton Bell Gallery
Native Americans at Brown
Brown Green Events

32

Friends Board

Jeffrey Schreck, President

Elizabeth Johnson, Secretary
Peter Van Dommelen, Director, Joukowsky
Institute of Archaeology and the Ancient World
Peter Allen, Rhode Island College
Edith Andrews, Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head
(Aquinnah)
Gina Borromeo, Curator, RISD Museum
Kristine M. Bovy, University of Rhode Island
Richard Locke, Provost
David Haffenreffer
Rudolf F. Haffenreffer
Barbara A. Hail, Curator Emerita
Sylvia Moubayed, CAV Restaurant
Jessica Leinaweaver, Interim Chair of Anthropology
Robert W. Preucel (Ex Officio)
Kevin P. Smith (Ex Officio)

Administration

Robert W. Preucel, Director

Douglas Anderson, Director of the Circumpolar
Laboratory
Kevin P. Smith, Deputy Director/Chief Curator
Thierry Gentis, Curator/NAGPRA Coordinator
Dawn Kimbrel, Registrar
Rip Gerry, Exhibit Preparator/Photo Archivist
Anthony M. Belz, Museum Guard/Greeter
Michelle Charest, Faculty Fellows Coordinator

Programs and Education

Geralyn Ducady, Curator of Programs and

Education
Kathy Silvia, Outreach Coordinator
Nicole Larrondo, Outreach Intern
Niyo Moraza-Keeswood, Outreach Intern
Luiza Silva, Outreach Intern
Leah Burgin, Student Docent Program
Development Assistant

Research

Michle Hayeur Smith, Research Associate

Christopher B. Wolff, Research Associate
Wanni Anderson, Research Affiliate
Edward (Ned) Dwyer, Research Affiliate

Faculty Fellows

Sheila Bonde, Professor of History of Art and

Architecture
Paja Faudree, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Bonnie Honig, Professor of Political Science and
Modern Culture and Media
Pat Rubertone, Professor of Anthropology
Joshua Tucker, Associate Professor of Music

Faculty Associates

Elizabeth Hoover, Assistant Professor of American

Studies and Ethnic Studies
Steven D. Lubar, Professor of American Studies,
History of Art and Architecture, and History
William S. Simmons, Professor of Anthropology

Postdoctoral Fellow

Christy Delair, Postdoctoral Fellow in

Museum Anthropology

Mellon Teaching Fellows

Masha Ryskin, Foundations, RISD

Jeffery Moser, Professor of History of Art and
Architecture, Brown University

Mellon Photography Assistant

Sophia Sobers, Department of Digital + Media, RISD

Student Assistants

Madeline Kearin, Anthropology Proctor

Omar A. Alcover Firpi, Anthropology Proctor
Darcy Hackley, Joukowsky Proctor
Arianna Riva, Collections Assistant

Student Guards/Greeters
Morayo Akande
Silvia Garcia
Hannah Liu
Odalmy Molina
Ayomide Omobo
Luiza Silva
Peter Vonu

Student Docents
Maria Averkiou
Julia Deng
Ciara Hayden
He Ri Kwon
Monica Roth
Luiza Silva
Steven Velazquez

Mge Durusu
Katherine Harrington
Patrick Loftus
Abby Muller
Candy Rui
Sonja Stojanovic

Lena Bohman
Julia Dodenhoff
Michelle Kulowski
Abby Muller
Candy Rui
Rhea Stark
Isabelle Williams

Student CultureLab Assistants

Hannah Liu
Sean OKeefe

Abby Muller
Luiza Silva

35

Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology

Brown University
Box 1965
Providence, RI 02912
brown.edu/Haffenreffer

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