Penn Anthropologist's Singular Approach to Identifying Indigenous Objects

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Margaret Bruchac uses multiple lines of evidence—including oral traditions, material analysis, university archives, and craft techonolgies—to better identify Native American cultural materials in museum collections. Her goal is to restore an unbiased understanding of indigenous peoples, objects, and communities, and to help with repatriation of materials. She is currently focused on wampum, beads used by a wide swath of northeastern Indian tribes for ceremonial, decorative, diplomatic, and governmental purposes, and is traveling to museums in the northeastern United States and Southern Canada.

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