Anthropology

Established in 1958, the department is one of the oldest of its kind in India, with a strong legacy of teaching and research in advanced fields of anthropology. It offers M.A./M.Sc., M.Phil., and Ph.D. programmes, and over the past 65 years has produced more than 1,500 postgraduates and over 110 doctoral scholars. Specialisations span Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Archaeological Anthropology, and Development Anthropology, reflecting contemporary directions in the discipline.

The department’s early eminence owes much to the leadership of its founding professor, A. Aiyappan, and Prof. L.K. Mahapatra, whose vision, along with the efforts of the faculty, shaped several milestone developments in its history. It holds the distinction of being the first department in the country to host a UGC Centre of Advanced Study (CAS I and II) and an MHRD-recognized National Resource Centre (NRC) in Anthropology (2017–18). It further received UGC’s Department of Special Assistance (DSA) status from 1988 to 2007, and support under the UGC’s Assistance for Strengthening of Infrastructure for Humanities and Social Sciences (ASIHSS) scheme. Faculty achievements include prestigious national and international honours such as the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, the Commonwealth Academic Staff Post-Doctoral Fellowship, and the Indo-French Cultural Exchange Programme, while six of its professors have served as President of the Anthropological and Behavioural Sciences Section of the Indian Science Congress.

International collaboration is central to its identity, with MoUs held with the University of Tübingen (Germany), the Frobenius Institute at Goethe University (Frankfurt), and the University of Groningen (Netherlands), alongside partnerships with national institutions such as the Indian Council of Medical Research, the Anthropological Survey of India, the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (Bhopal), and Deccan College, Pune. It was also awarded the CSIR-Kalinga-Haldane Chair in Human Genetics, further affirming its standing as a centre of excellence.