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of the Histories of Anthropology

Lamberto Loria (1855-1913), a wealthy globetrotter who became an ethnographer and self-made anthropologist, was a key figure in the history of the discipline in Italy. He took an interest in European, particularly Italian rural contexts as well as non-European cultures whose customs he strove to understand from an evolutionary perspective. During his many travels, the most important being in British New Guinea between 1888 and 1897, he collected objects for Italian museums, took many photographs and wrote several ethnographic manuscripts. This field experience influenced his comparatism and made him aware of the importance of methods of observation and ethnographic collection.

Keywords: Folklore | Museology/museography | Evolutionism | Collectors and collections | Ethnography | Christian missions | Ethnographic expeditions and missions | British colonialism | Italy | Papua New Guinea | Comparison | Melanesian studies | Trobriand | Dobu | Collections | Ethnomethodology | Notes and Queries | Paolo Mantegazza

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