In 2006 Department of Ethnology and Anthropology marked 125^th anniversary since Ethnology course has been introduced at the University of Belgrade and a Centennial of the Ethnological Seminar at the Faculty of Philosophy, which was the Department's predecessor. The Department of Ethnology changed its name in 1990 to the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, thus marking formally a significant theoretical and methodological shift which occurred in previous decade from a discipline traditionally oriented to the study of national culture, to the one devoted to modern socio-cultural analysis of values and cultural diversity at national, regional and global levels.

Because of the unique interdisciplinary openness and unifying qualities of different fields of anthropology, teachers, staff and researchers at the Department work jointly on issues such as cultural identities, political and cultural transition, tangible and intangible cultural heritage, multiculturalism, globalization, new religious movements etc...