Photographs of William Henry Holmes at Piney Branch Quarry
odd: label: Local Call Number(s)
content: NAA Photo Lot 86-12
name: label: Names
content: Holmes, William Henry, 1846-1933
place: label: Place
content: Washington (D.C.) -- Antiquities
topic: label: Topic
content: Excavations (Archaeology)
bioghist: label: Biographical/Historical note
content: William Henry Holmes (1846-1933) was an artist, geologist, and archeologist who spent most of his career with the United States Geological Survey of the Territories, United States Geological Survey, Bureau of American Ethnology, and Department of Anthropology of the Smithsonian. From 1894-1897, he was the head of anthropology at the Field Columbian Museum (Field Museum of Natural History) and on the staff of the University of Chicago. Holmes later served as head curator for the US National Museum Department of Anthropology from 1897-1902 and head of the BAE from 1902-1909.

From 1889 to 1894, shortly after his appointment to the Bureau of American Ethnology, William Henry Holmes conducted excavations of the quartzite and steatite quarries in the Rock Creek Valley. Based on these investigations, Holmes found a series of rejected blade forms, proving that they represented early stages of a manufacturing process and not an earlier native presence in North America.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 3 Copy prints
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1889-1894
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.PhotoLot.86-12
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Copy prints
label: Type
content: Photographs
bibliography: label: Bibliography
content: Photographs published in David J. Meltzer, First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009 .
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
originalsloc: label: Existence and Location of Originals note
content: Originals in Smithsonian American Art Portrait Gallery Library in William Henry Holmes's "Random records of a lifetime, 1846-1931 [i.e. 1932] Cullings, largely personal, from the scrap heap of three score years and ten, devoted to science, literature and art".
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: Images of William Henry Holmes and others, probably archeologists, at the paleoindian Piney Branch Quarry site in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC.
relatedmaterial: label: Location of Other Archival Materials
content: Reports and photographs relating to the Piney Branch Quarry site can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4695 and Photo Lot 4.
label: Location of Other Archival Materials
content: Correspondence by Holmes can be found throughout the National Anthropological Archives in MS 7206, the records of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and the records of the Department of Anthropology.
label: Location of Other Archival Materials
content: Manuscripts and notes by Holmes can be found throughout the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4698, MS 2125, MS 7112, and MS 7570.
label: Location of Other Archival Materials
content: The William Henry Holmes Papers, 1870-1931 (SIA RU007084), are held by the Smithsonian Institution Archives.