Paul Rivet was a French ethnologist known for founding the Musée de l'Homme in 1937. In his professional work, Rivet is known for his theory that South America was originally populated in part by migrants who sailed there from Australia and Melanesia. He married Mercedes Andrade Chiriboga, who was from Cuenca, Ecuador.

Ethnology is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them.