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Welcome to the Matson Museum!

The Matson Museum of Anthropology asks the question: WHO ARE WE? The Museum’s galleries seek to address this question by sharing the global human experience with the broader Penn State community. Our biological history, ancestral creativity, and contemporary diversity are all on display.

The Matson Museum is now closed to the public. Stay tuned! The new Matson Museum will reopen in the Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building in 2025. Our home is the Department of Anthropology in the College of the Liberal Arts.

The Matson Museum acknowledges that colonialism is built into anthropological collections. We work with Native American Tribes and Nations as well as other Indigenous groups and governments to document and repatriate cultural items when appropriate. Learn more about the Collections.

News

Check out the Matson Museum’s activities from Spring 2023 as we gear up to move into the new building in 2024!
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From classes visiting to explore particular themes to aspiring Penn Staters on a campus tour, the museum had an active slate of educational and outreach activities in spring 2022.
Matson Museum of Anthropology Spring 2022 Newsletter

Student Spotlight

Examining the DeForest collection of folk pottery from around the world has allowed me to appreciate the art of the common people as well as the influence women had on the fields of art and anthropology during the early 1900s through the objects on view.

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LeMhai Baity, Class of 2023
Cultural Anthropology Major, Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies Minor