The Oxford and Cambridge Expedition to South America took place in 1957-8, when teams from Oxford and Cambridge Universities drove overland across South America in three
Land Rovers
Land Rover is a British brand of predominantly four-wheel drive, off-road capable vehicles, owned by multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), since 2008 a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors. JLR currently builds Land Rovers ...
.
The expedition was the third in a series of overland expeditions undertaken by a joint team from both universities. The first, in 1954, was the
Oxford and Cambridge Trans-Africa Expedition
The Oxford and Cambridge Trans-Africa Expedition was a race undertaken in 1954 between undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge universities, crossing Africa from north to south - Cape Town - and back again. The journey traversed 25,000 miles. It wa ...
, from London to Cape Town, and the second and most famous was the 1955-6
Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition, from London to Singapore.
While on the expedition team member Adrian Cowell met the
Villas-Bôas brothers and left the Oxford and Cambridge Expedition to join them on the Centro Geographico Expedition to find the geographical centre of Brazil.
Ethnographic items collected were donated to the
Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford by
Peter Rivière
Peter G. Rivière (born 1934) is a British social anthropologist, Emeritus Professor of Oxford University and, with Audrey Butt Colson, a pioneer in the study and teaching of Amazonian peoples in England. In 1957-8 he took part in the Oxford a ...
on behalf of the expedition.
Team members (partial list)
*
Adrian Cowell Adrian Cowell (2 February 1934 – 11 October 2011) was a British filmmaker, born in Tongshan or Tangshan, China. He was best known for producing documentaries about Chico Mendes and deforestation in the Amazon and the opium/heroin trade out of the ...
(Cambridge) (previously a participant on the 1955-6 Singapore expedition)
*John Moore (Cameraman)
[
*Nigel Newbery (Oxford) (previously a participant on the 1955-6 Singapore expedition)
*]Peter Rivière
Peter G. Rivière (born 1934) is a British social anthropologist, Emeritus Professor of Oxford University and, with Audrey Butt Colson, a pioneer in the study and teaching of Amazonian peoples in England. In 1957-8 he took part in the Oxford a ...
References
{{reflist
External links
ITN news footage (silent) of the teams setting off from London
1957 in transport
Expeditions using Land Rovers
Clubs and societies of the University of Oxford
Clubs and societies of the University of Cambridge