The Department of Anthropology was established as one of the Institutes of the University of Budapest in 1881, the fourth among such university institutes in Europe. Aurel Török (1842-1912) was appointed its first professor and began to courses of lectures. In the university courses, Török made use of Topinard’s manual, which he together with G. Pethő translated and published in Hungarian in 1881. In 1882 published at his own expense "Anthropologiai Füzetek" (Journal of Anthropology), where he included sixteen of his own studies. His main purpose was to study the origin of the Hungarian people with the methods of paleoanthropology and ethnical anthropology. But the lack of financial support of the Secretaries of the State and other authorities he had to give up his idea. After this he devoted more and more attention to methodology, particularly connected with the reform of craniometry and he became the wellknown “reformer of craniology at Pest”. His book "Grundzüge einer systematischen Kraniometrie" (1890) is an interesting piece of reading, even today, for in it he described 5371 measurements and indices. His biometric methods, especially the introduction of probability theory into anthropological practice, brought him wide distinction.
Following Török’s death in 1912, the headship of Budapest University Department of Anthropology passed to directors who had inadequate grounding in the subject, first A. Koch, then Zs. Tóth, and then A. Paal. With M. Lenhossék’s (1863-1937) appointment as the head of Institute of Anthropology (who was that time the Professor of Anatomy) there was a great step forward. He did not restrict interest exclusively to osteology and craniology, in his work more modern topics appeared for the first time in Hungarian anthropological studies – demonstration of the extent of hominid variation, the characteristics of growth, numerous examples of disease frequency variation by sex and by race. Under his direction, the Institute of Anthropology of Budapest showed marked progress.

Following Wold War I, the zoologist L. Méhely was appointed head of the Department of Anthropology. He was of strong racist opinions, but these were not shared by other members of the Institute, or indeed any Hungarian anthropologists. After Méhely’s retirement in 1931, L. Bartucz (1885-1966) became the lecturer in Anthropology in the University of Budapest. He was formerly Török’s assistant, taking up the study of the anthropology of the Hungarians while Török was occupied with methodological questions. In 1920 he left the university, but in the years to follow he had arranged Jankó’s cranial collection in the ethnographic section of the Hungarian National Museum, and this workplace allowed him to build up the anthropological laboratory of the Museum. Bartucz scoped to collaborate with archaeologists and to collect human skeletal remains from excavations in the territory of Hungary. In parallel with this activity, Bartucz also began the study of ethnic groups living in various part of Hungary. It was Bartucz who reported on the famous Neanderthal finds of Subalyuk. Besides his work in the fields of palaeoanthropology and palaeopathology, he discussed the history of Hungarian anthropology in a number of studies, and indeed his work touched on almost all the domains of anthropology.

Bartucz recommenced the journal "Anthropologiai Füzetek" founded by Török in 1923, but was unsuccessful in establishing it as a regular periodical. Issues appeared sporadically up to the late 1930s, and this was the sole publication for anthropological investigations in Hungary at that period.

In the 1930s, M. Malán (1900-1968), a pupil of M. Lenhossék and E. Fischer from Germany, worked as Associate Professor at the Institute of Anthropology in Budapest, being particularly interested in human and population genetic topics. M. Fehér (1914-1975), also an Associate Professor, introduced into the so-called ethnic anthropological studies, as well as the investigations of questioned patternity. J. Nemeskéri (1914-2000), a pupil of L. Bartucz, started also his career in that period in this Department with studies on the physical anthropology of the Hajdu ethnical group.

In 1940 L. Bartucz was appointed the Professor of the Department of Anthropology at the University in Szeged, but he combined his duties with giving lectures in Budapest. Later, in 1959 he left the university of Szeged and he was appointed to the professor of anthropology in Budapest, called from the year 1950 as the Department of Anthropology at the Eötvös Loránd University. His activity at that time centered on palaeoanthropology and palaeopathology, and he published the monograph "Prehistoric Trephining and Grave Finds relating to the History of Medicine" (1966). Early in the 1950s, the first published university lecture notes in anthropology, under the title "Embertan" (Physical Anthropology) and "Emberszármazástan" (Evolution of Man) in Szeged and in the early 60’s in Budapest, too.

Up to the 1960’s only one or two assistants worked at the department. M. Fehér’s twenty-five years’ work as an Associate Professor was concentrated on ethnic anthropology, human genetics for questioned patternity, and to a lesser degree, examination of growth and development of Hungarian children. It is much to be regretted that of the material he collected on several hundred thousand individuals he hardly published anything.

O. G. Eiben (b. 1931), who joined the Department in 1963 and served as its head from 1975 to 1996, directed the work in the department already from 1965. At the close of the 1960s, extensive reconstruction of the department improved conditions. Early in the 1970s the educational and research activities of the department were consolidated, and besides the basic courses in physical anthropology and human biology, lectures began on human genetics, human ecology, and special topics in human biology, complemented, with the help of invited lecturers. Research is pursued mainly on growth and development of children, variations in human physique, and human population genetics.
O. G. Eiben and his associates carried out the first nation-wide, representative Hungarian growth study between 1982 and 1984, and have published national growth standards. Also Eiben organized the "Budapest Longitudinal Growth Study" started in 1970 with 0-1 year-old babies in collaboration with numerous institutes, several specialists and 60 nurses.
O. G. Eiben was the Editor of journal "Anthropologiai Közlemények" between 1965-1999.
In 1974 the Department instituted its own series of monographs with the title "Humanbiologia Budapestinensis" edited by O. G. Eiben.
O. G. Eiben passed away on November 16, 2004, at the age of 74 years.

From 1966 G. Gyenis (b. 1940) began to work in the Department on the fields of population genetics, dermatoglyphics, and growth and development of children and youth. In 1996 he became the head of the department and in 1999 the full professor of the Faculty of Science of the university. G. Gyenis retired in 2010, and he has helped the department’s teaching work as a volunteer since 2010.

Ottó Eiben retired as full-time professor in 2001, but continued his work as a scientific advisor until the 31st of December, 2002. Ottó Eiben died on the 16th of November, 2004, at the age of 74.

Éva Bodzsár graduated as biology and chemistry teacher in the Faculty of Science in 1970 and started her academic career in the department from 1972 to 2017. She studied at the Faculty of Humanities, ELTE between 1975 and 1978 and obtained her diploma in clinical psychology. Between 2005 and 2013, she worked as the head of the Department, and between 1997 and 2014 she also led the Group for Methodology in Biology Teaching, ELTE, Faculty of Science. She retired in 2017 and died on the 4th of September, 2019, at the age of 72.

Among the current staff members of the department, A. Zsákai joined the department in 2001, T. Hajdu in 2009, K. Vellainé Takács in 2013, and T. Szeniczey in 2021. A. Zsákai leads complex researches on the biological characteristics of the recent human populations. With the join of K. Vellanié Takács, a new direction in human genetics, tumor genetics and paleogenetics appeared in the teaching and research profile of the department. The join of T. Hajdu and then T. Szeniczey brought new strength in the historical anthropological research profile of the department, which had been missing since L. Bartucz.

K. Vellainé Takács took over the management of the department from É. Bodzsár from 2013 to 2022, and from 2022 T. Hajdu, as the head of the department leads the teaching and research work at the department.

Starting in the mid-1970s, numerous colleagues (I. Vágó, I. Kardos, É. Susa, J. Pápai) worked as staff members or did their research works to obtain their scientific degree at the department.

The members of the staff take part in the work of several Hungarian and international scientific associations, in the leadership of several Hungarian and international organisations in the fields of the biological antropology and serve on the editorial boards of numerous international journals.