Field work
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Stirling, Matthew Williams, 1896-1975
label: Collection Creator
content: Stirling, Marion
setName: label: See more items in
content: Matthew Williams Stirling and Marion Stirling Pugh papers
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1921-1998, undated
label: Date
content: bulk 1921-1975
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.2016-24, Series 1
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: This series is arranged in 7 subseries: 1.1 Papua New Guinea, 1925-1996 (bulk 1925-1928), undated; 1.2 Mexico, 1921-1998 (bulk 1938-1972), undated; 1.3 Panama, 1943-1962, undated; 1.4 Ecuador, 1930-1968, undated; 1.5 Costa Rica, 1963-1965, undated; 1.6 Other expeditions, 1921-1975 (bulk 1921-1935), undated; 1.7 Scrapbooks, 1925-1953.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Series 1. Field work, 1921-1998 (bulk 1921-1975) and undated, documents the archaeological expeditions undertaken by Matthew and Marion Stirling over a span of 40 years. This includes expeditions Matthew undertook prior to his marriage and collaboration with Marion (they married in 1933) to Papua New Guinea, Ecuador, and Florida, and extensive documentation of expeditions they embarked on together to Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. Materials include field notes, journals, correspondence, photographs, reports, clippings, ephemera, expense reports, travel itineraries, articles, and scrapbooks.

The bulk of the materials in this series relate to Matthew Stirling's 1925-1927 American-Dutch Expedition to Papua New Guinea and the eight Smithsonian Institution/National Geographic Society (SI/NGS) expeditions Matthew and Marion Stirling undertook to various sites in Mexico between 1938 and 1946. The Papua New Guinea materials include field notes, logistical documents, and photographs documenting the expedition. In addition Matthew Stirling's film/lecture tour "By Aeroplane to Pygmyland" that followed the expedition is well documented. The Mexico materials include extensive field notes, correspondence, and photographs documenting the expeditions to sites such as Tres Zapotes, La Venta, Cerro de las Mesas, Izapa, and San Lorenzo, and discoveries regarding Olmec culture, including the excavations of eight colossal Olmec heads.

The remainder of the materials document additional joint SI/NGS expeditions, including four to Panama between 1947 and 1953 and one to Ecuador in 1957; a Latin American Expedition to South and Central America from 1931-1932 where Matthew Stirling primarily conducted ethnographic studies of the Jivaro of Ecuador; an expedition to Costa Rica in 1964; and various other expeditions that Matthew (and sometimes Marion) participated in primarily during the 1920s and 1930s.