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Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University

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Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University

Explore the richness and diversity of the world's cultures! Come on in!

Our museum holds objects from around the world, the oldest half-a-million years old, the youngest hasn't been made yet. This page will let you see behind the scenes, talk to our staff, and keep you in tune with new discoveries at the museum and around the world. This Page exists to share Museum updates, and to provide an online forum for our audience to engage with topics in anthropology, archaeol

ogy, ethnography, and culture. Please be aware that we will review all comments and will remove any that harasses, abuses, threatens, or in any other way violates the rights of others. Comments that are irrelevant to the original topic, or comments that appear to be spam, may also be removed. Please understand that comments posted to this Page do not represent the opinions of Brown University.

03/13/2026

Bears on the move! Did you know the HMA has not one, but two bear mascots of our own? These Black Forest bear sculptures decorated the office of the museum’s founder, Rudolf F. Haffenreffer Jr., around 100 years ago, in the early 20th century. After safely migrating from Bristol to Providence, mama and cub were kind enough to pose for a photo op in the office area before making their way to their new cave (aka collections housing). 🐻🧸♥️

02/17/2026

📣✨Publication alert! Congratulations to HMA’s Associate Curator for Repatriation and Provenance Kellie J. Bowers on the publication of the article, “Perspectives, Policies, and Practices: Challenges and Pathways for Culturally Sensitive Collections Care”, co-authored with John Robert Elmore III.

Abstract:
"Since 2018 the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) has actively engaged in Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) compliance work. During this time, the agency developed new perspectives and policies on NAGPRA and Indigenous collections care through consultation with Tribal partners and participation in the NAGPRA Community of Practice. Based on experiences at the ADAH, the authors identify challenges in implementing culturally sensitive collections care and suggest pathways forward. Topics of discussion include building institutional commitment and capacity, identifying and implementing culturally sensitive practices, stewarding sensitive information, and navigating a variety of stakeholder positions on NAGPRA and repatriation. We conclude that prioritizing the integration of Indigenous perspectives into collections care can positively affect the culture of our workplaces and disciplines at large."

Citation: Advances in Archaeological Practice , Volume 13, Theme Issue 3: Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners , August 2025 , pp. 409 - 420
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2025.10098

02/14/2026

The people of Providence stepped up for Brown when it mattered most. We’re saying thank you to the community that has given us so much — by donating locally, shopping locally and volunteering locally. Learn how to take part: brown.edu/brown-loves-providence

02/10/2026

Scenes from a Move: A Photo Essay

We’re about three months into moving the museum, with time so far spent relocating collections with our move partner Crozier Fine Arts and getting to know our new building. Please enjoy this peek behind the scenes!

02/02/2026

As HMA is starting a new year moving into our new Jewelry District home, we want to take a moment to express our deepest gratitude for the unwavering support we have received from our new neighbors, our campus community, and all of our partners who have been by our side caring for us, for each other, and for our collections during this challenging period.

📸 pictured: the Crozier Fine Arts team, taking great care in moving our collections.

For support and recovery resources, we encourage you to visit Brown’s Ever True website: https://evertrue.brown.edu/

The Brown community is resilient, caring and strong. We are ever true. 🐻🤎

11/10/2025

The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology is seeking a Manager of Museum Education and Programs.

About the Opportunity:
The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology is Brown University’s teaching and research museum. A resource across the university, we inspire creative and critical thinking about culture by fostering interdisciplinary understanding of the material world.

Responsibilities:
The Manager of Museum Education and Programs is responsible for academic collections-based learning; public programming; pre-K-12 education; gallery access and visitor services; and community outreach at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. The role manages, designs, coordinates, and in some cases delivers these programs aligned with the museum’s goal to create a welcoming and innovative educational environment. The role also manages HMA’s education collections. This position works collaboratively across museum departments, university departments and centers, external partners, and Native American and other stakeholder communities. The role provides significant input into the museum’s strategic direction and serves as a key advisor to museum leadership on matters of education, programming, exhibition, and other community outreach.

Qualifications:
Education and Experience

Required: Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, Education, Museum Studies, or a related field and minimum 3–5 years’ related experience.

Preferred: Master’s degree in a related field and minimum 3–5 years’ related experience or equivalent relevant experience.

Salary Grade:
10

Open until filled. For fullest consideration please submit within two weeks of the Brown University posting date: 11/3/25

To view complete description and apply, copy paste URL:
https://brown.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/staff-careers-brown/job/Program-Manager_REQ199710

or search REQ199710 in the Careers at Brown site (brown.edu/careers)

10/21/2025

🦇October is ! We are celebrating by enjoying these wonderful drawings of bats from the Herbert J. Spinden collection, located in the HMA Archives. The Spinden archive contains over 20,000 images and documents related to Maya and broader Native Central and South American archaeology, architecture, and ethnography from the early 20th century. Dr. Spinden traveled and worked extensively in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, producing hundreds of sketches, architectural drawings, maps, and tracings from Maya archaeological sites, as well as thousands of glass photographic negatives, which were preserved on film and transferred to photographic prints by HMA in the late 1990s. In the 1920s Dr. Spinden was one of the first outside scholars to attempt to correlate the Maya Long Count calendar system with the modern Gregorian calendar, to enthusiastic popular coverage, and his book A Study of Maya Art (later republished and expanded as Maya Art and Civilization) is a key early analysis of Maya architecture and visual culture. Dr. Spinden’s collections are a valuable resource for the history of art and architecture in the precontact Americas, the history of archaeology as a discipline, and the oft-complex relationship between researchers and the peoples and locations they work with. Though HMA’s Archives are temporarily closed for research due to our ongoing move, we look forward to hosting future visitors at our new location at 1 Davol Square, and making our collections from the Amazonian field journals of Kenneth Kensinger to J. Louis Giddings’ Arctic tree-ring records available once again.

10/02/2025

Join the Brown University Library, the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, and the RISD Ceramics Department for an artist’s talk with Virgil Ortiz, the award-winning Pueblo artist whose work combines innovative pottery, art, décor, fashion, video, and film.

Pueblo Revolt 1680/2180
Thursday, October 16 at 6 p.m
John Hay Library (321)
Free and open to the public. In-person event.

🔗 https://events.brown.edu/event/virgil-ortiz-pueblo-revolt

Virgil Ortiz is one of today’s most visionary artists—fusing Pueblo culture with sci-fi, fantasy, and fashion to create unleashed new worlds. Drawing from ancestral storytelling and his family’s legacy of Cochiti Pueblo potters, Ortiz transforms clay, couture, film, and digital media into futuristic narratives that captivate audiences worldwide. His saga Revolt 1680/2180 reimagines Pueblo history with time-traveling warriors, igniting Indigenous Futurism on the global stage. With exhibitions from Paris to Miami, Ortiz inspires a new generation to see art as rebellion, resistance, and survival—blazing a path where culture collides with imagination, and the future is unbound.

Clay Revolution at RISD
This talk is the second of two joint events organized with RISD’s Ceramics Department. The first event, Clay Revolution, is a public lecture the day prior (Oct. 15) at RISD Museum, 2 to 3 p.m.

09/30/2025

Our team got a sneak peek of the new space at One Davol Square recently! Soon, we'll start the process of preparing the spaces to receive collections. What does it look like to set up house in a museum? Stay tuned!

1: Staff in the building’s atrium.
2: Circling up in the gallery.
3: Envisioning the painting collection hanging on its new art racks.
4: The work room.

09/02/2025

Opening on September 3rd at the David Winton Bell Gallery, ojo|-|ólǫ́ is a major solar exhibition by Diné artist Eric-Paul Riege (b. 1994, Na’nízhoozhí [Gallup, New Mexico]).

From Martin Cid Magazine:
“Rooted in Riege’s training as a weaver, the exhibition engages directly with the Navajo holdings at Brown’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. By placing new works in conversation with these collections, the artist considers how institutional archives shape public understandings of “authenticity,” value, and authorship in Native art and craft.”

Read full article:
https://www.martincid.com/art/eric-paul-rieges-ojo-ol%c7%ab-revisits-dine-weaving-through-the-lens-of-the-museum-archive/

For more info:
https://bell.brown.edu/exhibition/eric-paul-riege-ojo-olo
David Winton Bell Gallery: List Art Building, Brown University, 64 College Street.

9/18, 5:30-8 PM: Opening celebration with performance.

10/9 & 10/10: Sound/Performance/Curation as Care (Artists' Convening).

08/26/2025

🐶 Happy National Dog Day! As we sweat through the dog days of summer here in Rhode Island, many of us would happily trade the heat for snow and ice floes like those depicted on this piece of scrimshaw. Created by the Chukchi people of far northeastern Russia, it features detailed scenes of Arctic life engraved on a section of polished walrus tusk. One side depicts seals, walruses, and polar bears lounging on ice floes. On the other side is a scene of Chukchi camp life, with traditional yaranga homes made from reindeer hides, herders at work, and sled dogs looking on.

Maker Once Known, Chukchi People (Russia)
Scrimshaw (1960)
walrus ivory, pigment
55 x 18 x 18.5 cm
Gift of Robert and Winifred Galkin
[HMA Object ID: 97-14-7]

Address

21 Prospect Street
Providence, RI
02912

Opening Hours

Thursday	11am - 4pm
Friday	11am - 4pm
Saturday	11am - 4pm
Sunday	11am - 3pm

Telephone

+14018632065

Website

http://www.brown.edu/Haffenreffer

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