significant collections of antiquities derived from archaeological excavation and collection. Many famous collections have been presented to the Ashmolean, an example being sir richard colt hoare’s donation of “the Douglas collection” of Anglo-Saxon antiquities in 1827. The museum has also benefited from the activities of its keepers, the most famous of whom was sir arthur evans. Under Evans, the Ashmolean once again rationalized its exhibits, expanded, and moved into new premises in Beaumont Street in Oxford. These changes have ensured that the Ashmolean remains one of the most significant archaeological museums in the world, and the research of its staff allows it to remain at the cutting edge of world archaeology.

../images/Ashmoleon.jpg

Ashmolean Museum

(Ancient Art and Architecture Collection Ltd.)

Tim Murray

References

Ovenell, R.F. 1986. The Ashmolean Museum 1683–1894. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Atwater, Caleb (1778–1867)

An early American antiquary and amateur archaeologist who was born in North Adams, Massachussets. Atwater received a B.A. from Williams College and became a Presbyterian minister; he later studied and practiced law in New York City. After moving his legal practice to Circleville, Ohio, in 1815 to practice law, he used his spare time to study and record local earthworks and antiquities. The American Antiquarian Society (established in 1812) published his Descriptions of the Antiquities Discovered in the State of Ohio and Other Western States (1820) in the first volume of their transactions.

The earth mounds discovered west of the Appalachian Mountains contained artifacts made of pottery, shell, and native copper, and they challenged the widespread belief that native American Indians were too primitive and inferior to create such “sophisticated” artifacts and complex structures. Indeed at that time the bulk of observers could not accept that the ancestors of native American Indians were capable of such building feats, and their origins of the earth mounds became the focus of an ongoing debate. Some antiquarians and members of the public argued that they were built by Vikings or other Europeans, or by the ancestors of Mexicans