More than one third are from the SW United States and NW Mexico. In addition to the collections from the Southwest, the remaining collections are from other parts of North America, Central and South America, Africa, Oceania and Asia.
Southwestern collections consist primarily of basketry, pottery, and textiles.
Kachinas, carved masks, jewelry and beadwork are also well represented. As well, the collections contain a wide variety of other utilitarian artifacts, such as musical instruments, weapons, and household tools. The collections date mostly from the 1880s to the 1980s. Plains and Great Lakes beadwork, Mexican masks, Philippine pottery, and select examples of African and Oceanic sculpture are but a few of the other artifact categories in the Arizona State Museum's extensive and varied ethnographic holdings. The ethnological collections at ASM are indexed by several databases.