The Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology is a museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

 of anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

 in Georgetown

Georgetown, Guyana

Georgetown, estimated population 239,227 , is the capital and largest city of Guyana, located in the Demerara-Mahaica region. It is situated on the Atlantic Ocean coast at the mouth of the Demerara River and it was nicknamed 'Garden City of the Caribbean.' Georgetown is located at . The city serves...

, Guyana

Guyana

Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...

 and claims to be the oldest such museum in the English-speaking Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

region. It was established in 1974, but not opened to the public until 1982.

Objectives

The museum is a non-profit institution created by the Government of Guyana to collect, exhibit and conserve artifacts relating to the ancient cultures of Guyana, to conduct anthropological research and disseminate knowledge of the Indigenous Peoples of Guyana through its in-house and out-reach programmes.

In particular, pursuing the aims and objectives relating to its mission and function as a museum of anthropology involves:
promoting and make the museum accessible to students, researchers, and the general public through the rendering of professional assistance and service to them;
marketing the museum as an institution for the acquisition of, insight into and understanding of the various cultures of the Indigenous peoples of Guyana;
encouraging continuing research on different aspects of the collection by students and academics;
providing appropriate storage facilities for the collection store and preserve the collection under optimum conditions in line with its mission as a depository of artifacts of anthropological and archaeological significance;
expanding the collection in keeping with the mission of the museum.

Collections

The museum was founded with the collections of Guyanese archaeologist Dr Denis Williams. In 1980 the ethnographic collections of Dr Walter Roth, Mr J.J. Quelch and Sir Everard im Thurn were transferred to the Walter Roth Museum from the Guyana Museum. An ethnographic collection of the Waiwai was presented to the museum in 1991 by Guyanese Cultural anthropologist Dr George P. Mentore. The museum's collections also include excavated artifacts from all of the ten Administrative Regions of Guyana.

Publications

Archaeology and Anthropology, the museum's joumal is published annually and subscribers include leading universities and libraries of the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa and the Caribbean. Other publications include monographs by renowned scholars in the sub-disciplines of anthropology and children's books on prehistoric Guyana.

The museum's out-reach programme caters for the nursery, primary and secondary levels of formal education while the library is equipped to supply information for all levels of research.

Scientific advisory committee

A scientific advisory committee monitors and advises the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology on the research programmes generally, but particularly with respect to the coordination of national programmes with ongoing investigations in anthropology in South America and the Caribbean. The committee also monitors the museum's journal the objective of maintaining and/or improving its scientific standard. The committee advises in the matter of professional appointments to the museum in the fields of anthropology and museology and in museum management, training, and policies relating to museum collections.