Before 1885: pioneering echoes of Anthropology at the University of Coimbra

Although Anthropology studies were formally established at the University of Coimbra in 1885, the Viscount of Vila Maior, Júlio Máximo de Oliveira Pimentel, Rector between 1869 and 1884, presented a text as Commissioner of the Universal Exhibition of Paris (1878), in which he proposed the creation of a Section of Anthropology within the Faculty of Natural Philosophy — a proposal that would only materialize later, under Bernardino Machado.

Years earlier, Júlio Augusto Henriques (1838–1928), Professor of Botany and Director of the UC Botanical Garden (1873–1918), had also shown interest in Anthropology by writing his competitive dissertation for the Faculty of Natural Philosophy of the UC, entitled “Antiquity of Man”, in 1866.

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