Old World Paleolithic and the Development of a National Collection

摘要

Our work represents a historical overview of the development of the Old World Paleolithic collections curated in the Smithsonian Institution. In compiling this book, two goals of the project were formulated: (1) to document the existence of the collections and to create an inventory of accessions by provenience and artifact types$ and (2) to more closely relate archival and accession information in order to indicate why and how the collections were acquired. With respect to the first aim, artifact accession counts have been organized by geographic location and site provenience. Thus, for the first time, this book centrally codifies the provenience, nature, and size of the Paleolithic collections. For the second goal, the original collection-related correspondence and artifact inventories in various Smithsonian archives were reviewed to provide a history of the activities of institutions and persons involved in the transactions.