The Pitt Rivers Museum was founded in 1884 upon the personal donation to the University of Oxford of the collection of Lt.-General Pitt Rivers, an influential figure in the development of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology. The original building constructed to preserve and display the collection is still home to the museum today. An extension building was completed and opened in 2007, and the museum is currently carrying out further renovation plans.
The museum's archaeological and ethnographic collection preserves objects from all parts of the world, having grown from the General's founding gift of around 18,000 objects to approximately 300,000. Many were donated by early anthropologists, explorers, and colonial administrators. The extensive photographic, manuscript, and sound archives, numbering several hundred thousand more items, contain early records of great importance. The photographic department, with its dedicated collection mission and specialist staff, is the only department of its kind in an anthropology museum in the UK. The photograph collections are particularly strong in nineteenth and early twentieth century material, featuring the photography of travellers such as Sir Wilfred Thesiger, whose collection alone numbers some 38,000 images.