Description
The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), established in 1989 as part of the Smithsonian Institution, is dedicated to advancing knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Americas through partnerships with Native people and others. The NMAI’s collection comprises more than 825,000 objects, representing more than 1,500 indigenous American cultures over the course of 14,000 years. NMAI operates the museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the George Gustav Heye Center in New York, and the Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland. More than 2 million people visit the museums each year, while the Cultural Resources Center welcomes hundreds of tribal elders, community leaders and scholars to engage with and study the collections.
NMAI now seeks funding for the term position of Associate Curator of North American Archaeology, one of 40 post-doctoral posts initiated through the Smithsonian Secretary’s Scholars program to accelerate advanced curatorial work across the Smithsonian and build a pipeline of intellectual leaders. Although NMAI has been successful in its efforts to educate the public about Native American history, art, and cultures after 1492, and has also focused on deeper histories in the Andes and Central America, far less attention has been given to the artistic and technological achievements of earlier societies in North America. The subject is largely invisible, or associated with inaccurate information, in large measure because NMAI’s North American archaeology collection has lacked dedicated curatorial expertise for decades.
North American archaeology happens to be NMAI’s largest collection, encompassing 444,000 items, or more than 50 percent of the object holdings. Originating in excavations sponsored Museum of the American Indian in the Northeast, the holdings are now strongest in Southeastern and Midwestern archaeology, with great depth in Southeastern ceramics, metalwork, and basketry; material from Moundville and Crystal River; and masterworks of archaeological art from the Spiro Mound Complex. Important Southwest archaeology holdings from Hawikuh Pueblo in New Mexico include protohistoric and early historic Zuni pottery, and shell and turquoise ornaments. Other collection highlights include comprehensive holdings of Ancestral Pueblo Basketmaker Culture textiles and pottery, Mimbres pottery; and holdings from Chaco Canyon, California, and the Northwest Coast.
The Associate Curator of North American Archaeology would support NMAI’s goal of serving public interests through research and scholarship, thus making these collections, and their documentation and interpretation, available for use in Smithsonian exhibitions, programming, online resources, and external projects and publications. The Associate Curator would serve as a liaison with American Indian tribal museums, cultural centers, and community-based scholars, responding to and working with Native communities researching ancestral sites and materials. This role would entail hosting tribal delegations to work with archaeological collections, helping to build relationships with tribal constituencies, and encouraging tribal communities’ use and understanding of NMAI archaeological collections.
NMAI would recruit the Associate Curator of North American Archaeology under the federal Curator job classification with the expectation of attracting early career scholars who have already demonstrated expertise and an interest in object-based research, public interpretation, and consulting and/or collaborating with Native communities or tribal organizations. Although the Associate Curator initially will be recruited for a three-year term position, NMAI has every expectation that this will become a permanent, internally-funded staff position.
