The origins of the collection managed by the Center for Archaeological Research and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology can be traced to the efforts of Calvin Brown, a professor of Modern Languages who acquired for the University of Mississippi a number of extraordinary objects from important archaeological sites across the state.  Many of these objects are illustrated in his 1926 book Archeology of Mississippi.  Additional materials, mostly from sites in north Mississippi, have accumulated since the 1950s through annual archaeological field schools in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.  Also, fieldwork conducted by the Center for Archaeological Research has generated materials from surveys and excavations across Mississippi since the 1970s.  A century of collecting artifacts and conducting archaeological fieldwork at the University of Mississippi has produced a large, invaluable collection of over 1300 boxes containing materials from over 500 individual archaeological sites.  Most of these are Native American sites from across Mississippi, especially the northern half of the state.  The collection also includes Native American ethnographic materials from the Arctic, the Northwest Coast, the Southwest, and the Southeast; military objects from the Civil War and World War I; and items relevant to the history of the University of Mississippi.