The is one of the major museums in
Japan. It is Japan's largest research institute in the academic disciplines of humanities and social sciences, which was established in 1974 and opened to the public in 1977. It is built on the former grounds of
Expo '70 in
Suita, Osaka. The founding collection is known as the Attic Collection, and is an early 20th-century
ethnological collection of mainly Japanese materials, including some early finds of
Jomon archaeological artifacts (in the Morse Collection). Further collections were brought together for the opening in 1977 and collecting activities have continued since.