interest since the early nineteenth century. Various scholars actively collected American Indian remains, seeking to explain possible migration from Asia by comparing American Indians with Asians (Bieder, 1986). They also sought to explain physical and cultural differences between and among native peoples and others; often cultural differences were seen as a result of racial ones. In 1839, Morton published Crania Americana, reporting that Caucasians had larger brain capacities and therefore higher intelligence than American Indians, and the “science” of phrenology soon developed. Collecting crania became more widespread, as scholars attempted to relate intelligence, personality, and character to skulls and brains.

The Smithsonian Institution opened in 1846 and provided further impetus for the development of American archaeology, physical anthropology, and ethnology. On May 21, 1862, Surgeon General William Hammond suggested that an Army Medical Museum be established for “the study of military medicine and surgery and that the proposed museum house a collection of specimens of morbid anatomy, surgical or medical, which may be regarded as valuable; together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed” (Hammond, 1862:2). Collecting would be done by U.S. Army medical officers, concurrent with the U.S. Civil War. After the Civil War, as the former Union Army turned its attention westward to confront American Indians on the plains, the Army Medical Museum sought to update its collections in light of the new conflict, as well as obtain other types of specimens. The U.S. Army also became involved as their mandate to handle the “Indian problem” expanded. On April 4, 1867, Surgeon General J.K.Barnes requested that medical officers also collect:

1. Rare pathological specimens from animals, including monstrosities.

2. Typical crania of Indian tribes; specimens of their arms, dress, implements, rare items of their diet, medicines, etc.

3. Specimens of poisonous insects and reptiles, and their effects on animals (Lamb, n.d.:43).

Over time, more than 4,000 American Indian skulls were collected from burial scaffolds, graves, and ossuaries, and battlefields and sites of massacres, and sent to the Army Medical Museum.¹²