He served as an assistant to Charles Hercules Read for whom he gathered ethnographic artefacts by collaborating with others who travelled abroad, like Emil Torday who went to the Belgian Congo.
[1] Joyce took an increasing interest in American anthropology including a description of what is now the Totem Pole in the British Museum's Great Court and the stories that it tells.
[1] Du Bois derided Joyce's ethnographic description of Negros as culturally and intellectually inferior.
[1] In 1927 Joyce eventually travelled abroad when he led an annual expedition team, including members of the Royal Geographical Society, to British Honduras.
In 1927 Joyce published a book on Mayan art where he proposed that Mexican relief sculpture exceeded that of the quality of Egypt of Mesopotamia.
[1] Joyce became President of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1931 following long service since 1903 including periods as secretary and a frequent Vice-President.