The Anthropology Division's African collection is extensive in terms of geographic coverage. It includes North Africa, West Africa, and Madagascar, although its greatest concentration of material is from central and southern Africa. The Douglas purchase from southern Africa (1905), the Starr collection from central Africa (1905-6), the Belgian government gift (1907), and the Lang-Chapin Congo Expedition collection (1909-15) together make up about one-third of the African ethnology holdings. Such concentrations of materials from particular localities provide a detailed artifactual record of African life before much of its material culture was altered by colonialism and Western material culture.