In 1913, the Portuguese Ethnological Museum became part of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Lisbon. Its collections became an educational resource for the improvement and expansion of the University’s "higher intellectual culture”. Given that private collectors are crucial for building collections of national and university museums, this presentation addresses the relationships between academic knowledge and collectors’ practices. Antonio Paes da Silva Marques (1876-1950), a former administrator of the Avis county and a deputy for Elvas during the first republic, was one of such collectors. A former student of Escola Politécnica (Polytechnic School) of Lisbon and a frequent correspondent with the Director of the Portuguese Ethnological Museum, Antonio Paes was one of the local influential personalities. He offered and promoted the donation of collectors’ pieces to the museum, hence contributing to the enrichment of museum collections and to the development of explanatory theories on the production of objects during the Neolithic Period. Focusing on his intellectual experiences, namely on the relationships between private collecting and the academic world, we will identify Antonio Paes cultural and scientific practices through the analysis of networks and channels for science exchange; this will enable us to draw conclusions on the path travelled between “collectors curiosity” and the dissemination of scientific culture in academia through university collections. Particular attention will be given to the trajectory of some pieces collected by Antonio Paes that were presented at the International Congress of Archaeology in 1912.