Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, commonly known as MAA, is a university museum at the University of Cambridge. It houses the university's collections of local antiquities alongside archaeological and ethnographic artefacts from around the world. Located on the university's Downing Site at the corner of Downing Street and Tennis Court Road, the museum is part of the University of Cambridge Museums consortium. It reopened in 2013 following a major refurbishment of its exhibition galleries, which included the creation of a new public entrance directly onto Downing Street.

The University of Cambridge established the museum in 1884 as the Museum of General and Local Archaeology. Its initial collections comprised local antiquities gathered by the Cambridge Antiquarian Society and Polynesian artefacts donated by Alfred Maudslay and Sir Arthur Gordon. The institution's first curator, Anatole von Hugel, donated his own South Pacific artefacts, and further material was acquired from Emile Clement's collection of Western Australian Aboriginal objects. The 1898 Cambridge anthropological expedition to the Torres Strait, led by Alfred Haddon and W. H. R. Rivers, brought in more material. Haddon and Rivers encouraged their students, including Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, John Layard, and Gregory Bateson, to collect for the museum during their ethnographic fieldwork. Von Hugel initiated a move to larger, specially built premises on Downing Street in 1913, though the new galleries were not fully installed until after World War I. The 1910s and 1920s saw further significant deposits and donations, including material collected on James Cook's three expeditions. Successive curators after von Hugel included Louis Colville Gray Clarke (1922 to 1937), Thomas Paterson (1937 to 1948), Geoffrey Bushnell (1948 to 1970), Peter Gathercole (1970 to 1981), and David Phillipson (1981 to 2006). Nicholas Thomas has served as director since 2006. In 2024, 32 Ugandan artefacts acquired during the colonial period were returned to the Uganda Museum under a loan arrangement for research and exhibition.

The museum's collections span archaeology and anthropology on a global scale, with particular strengths in local Cambridge antiquities, Pacific and Polynesian ethnographic artefacts, and materials gathered during early anthropological expeditions. The institution actively participated in field collecting, evidenced by the 1898 Torres Strait expedition and the ongoing efforts of Cambridge anthropologists. The museum collaborates on the True Echoes research project with the British Museum, investigating the use of audio recordings within anthropology and mapping connections between related collections of objects, photographs, and field notes.

Among the museum's most significant holdings are four surviving Australian Aboriginal spears belonging to the Gweagal people. Originally part of a collection of roughly fifty spears brought to England by Captain James Cook and Joseph Banks following their 1770 voyage, these four spears were given to Cook's patron, John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who subsequently donated them to Trinity College. While remaining in the ownership of Trinity College, the spears are on display at the museum and represent some of the few surviving artefacts traceable to Cook's first voyage. The ground floor also features a display on the Anglo-Saxon Trumpington bed burial.

The museum is situated on the Downing Site of the University of Cambridge, at the corner of Downing Street and Tennis Court Road. The building itself is Grade II listed and incorporates the central section of Inigo Jones's choir screen from Winchester Cathedral. A major refurbishment project completed in 2013 redeveloped the ground floor, added new archaeology galleries and temporary exhibition space, and created a direct public entrance onto Downing Street. The museum also utilizes the Grade II listed regional seat of government nuclear bunker on Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge, which now serves as the Centre for Material Culture, functioning as a store for the institution.

The museum is located centrally in Cambridge on the Downing Site, in proximity to other University of Cambridge museums such as the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences and the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology. Emmanuel College lies to the east, Downing College to the south, and Pembroke College to the west. The museum's public displays are arranged across three floors: the ground floor houses the Clarke Hall, dedicated to the archaeology of Cambridge, alongside the Li Ka Shing Gallery for temporary exhibitions. The first floor features the Maudslay Hall, focusing on anthropology, while the second floor contains the Andrews Gallery, dedicated to world archaeology. The museum is part of the University of Cambridge Museums consortium and received approximately 107,000 visitors in 2024.