The Sammlung für Völkerkunde — the Ethnological Collection of the Institute of Cultural and Social Anthropology — holds one of the oldest and most important ethnographic collections in Germany, started in the 1770s. The Pacific holdings in particular are unrivalled in Europe, including artefacts collected on Captain Cook's voyages and brought to Göttingen by the natural historian Georg Forster and his father.
The display rooms are small but rewarding, with strong sections on Oceania, the indigenous Americas, and Siberia. The collection is housed in a 17th-century mansion just east of the market square.