Perhaps the most noteworthy of Peabody's functions is its sponsorship of anthropological field expeditions. Director Brew estimates that the Museum has participated in between 600 and 700 such expeditions in the course of its 87-year history. Peabody expeditions are financed largely independently of the Museum's regular University budget--foundations usually provide part of the support but much of the financial backing is based upon outside grants from interested private citizens.
"And an Anthropologist"
Peabdoy expeditions often are pioneering anthropological projects, branching into relatively undeveloped areas of study. According to a common anecdote, probably as old as the Piltdown Man and just about as authentic, every Navaho family consists of a father, a mother, two children, and an anthropologist. Peabody has done it share in the past to develop such familiar channels of research, but pr recent years, Museum expeditions have tended to enter virgin anthropological territory.
One of the Museum's most intensive recent projects has been its large-scale expedition to Southwest Africa, a trip which produced the first complete cultural study of the African Bushman. For the first time, an anthropological group entered the wild Bushman country and actually lived with a native tribe. Led by Lawrence Marshall, a native of Cambridge though not a member of the University faculty, the expedition during its last season spent no less than 14 continuous months in contact with a 500-member Bushman tribe.
The Bushmen
The Marshall Party made survey trips to the Bushman area for two years before embarking on a full-scale study. Then, in June, 1952, the expedition returned to Africa with plans to film an entire year in the life of the tribe. "The only previous contact with Bushmen had been around police posts," Marshall explains. "Most of the Bushmen we worked with had never even seen white people before." Even the elementary problem of communication proved a vexing one, for the expedition had extreme difficulty in obtaining native interpreters who were familiar with the Bushman tongue.
But the Bushmen were friendly and hospitable hosts for fourteen months. "We never even say a quarrel among them during the whole time we were there." Marshall recalls. "At the end they were very sorry to see us leave and we were sorry to go." Besides good-will, the expedition brought back 120 pounds of written notes and tens of thousands of photographs of the Bushman in his native habitat.
Farmers' Site
In another of Peabody's expeditions, made possible by a grant from the George Grant McCurdy Fund, Hailam L. Movius Jr., associate professor of anthropology, spent last summer excavating one of the most important archaeological sites in Europe--the Les Eyzies Paleolithic deposits in southwestern France. Even in civilized France, however, the anthropologist meets his vicissitudes. The site hardy family of Freshfarmers, and "It's the richest site I've ever seen," says Movius wistfully; "Someday I hope the Peabody Museum will buy it."
Official red taps also complicated the expedition's work. The site is a protected national monument and the French Government authorization was required to take the excavated materials out of France. In addition, the site is located only a few feet from a main highway and hordes on curious motorists soon descended on the area to direct the archaeologists, in their work.
Impressive Results
In spite of all obstacles, however, Les Eyzies yielded impressive results. In six weeks of digging. Movius and his assistants found more than ten thousand artifacts in a trench only a meter wide by 13 meters long. He has extensive plans for future work in the area-'I'd like to dig there for six or seven years," he says. Movius hopes ot establish an international summer project at the site for interested students form institutions all over the world. "It would be a place for people who want training in excavation techniques," he explains, 'I'd be glad to take them on.
To a Better Understanding
Again this year Museum expeditions will set out in search of new anthropological words to conquer. Present plans call for Peabody operations of one kind or another this year on all the continents except Australia. Some of these projects will undoubtedly be highly organized expeditions with full staffs, others the intensive researches of single scholars. But all will be helping to push forward the frontiers of anthropological knowledge. To this goal of a better Understanding of man and his ways, the anthropologist is dedicated, whether he works with pen or pick-axe.