THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



DEPARTMENT OF ARCHEOLOGY: EXPLORATIONS IN 

 THE SOUTHWEST. 



NE of the expeditions sent into the field by the 

 Museum during the past summer was in charge 

 of Mr. George H. Pepper of the Department of 

 Archaeology. The scene of operations was the 

 Pueblo Region of New Mexico and Arizona. The 

 object of the trip was not merely the enrichment of the South- 

 western Collections of the Museum, but also and more especially 

 the study of the arts and habits of the sedentary people in order 

 that the survival of ancient practices might be detected in the 

 collections which have resulted from former investigations in 

 this part of the country. 



In considering the various phases of Southwestern anthropo- 

 logical work, a student has always been confronted with the lack 

 of absolute data concerning the ceramic arts of the various 

 pueblos as viewed in a comparative way. Collections made in 

 the field had, in many instances, been rendered unreliable for 

 scientific study from the fact that all vessels were accredited to 

 the pueblos in which they were found, and were, therefore, looked 

 upon as typical productions of that village. This naturally had 

 a misleading tendency and it was almost impossible for a scien- 

 tist to make a definite statement concerning the absolute types 

 that might be found in any specified pueblo. There were excep- 

 tions of course as the result of monographs by careful investiga- 

 tors who had made a special study of some particular village, 

 but in general no authentic records were available. 



Mrs. Robert de Forest of this city, who is an earnest student 

 of ceramics, and Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst of San Francisco became 

 interested in this phase of the Museum's investigation in the 

 Southwest and liberally cooperated in the plan. Thus strength- 

 ened the Hyde Expedition was enabled to carry on the work 

 on a greater scale than otherwise would have been possible. 



Mr. Pepper first went to Espanola and from there visited the 

 pueblos of Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Pojoaque, Nambe and 

 Tesuque. One of the ceremonial dances at the pueblo of Santa 



