Arthur Maurice Hocart (26 April 1883, in Etterbeek, Belgium – 9 March 1939, in Cairo, Egypt) was an anthropologist best known for his eccentric and often far-seeing works on Polynesia, Melanesia, and Sri Lanka.
Hocart's family had resided for several hundred years in Guernsey (one of the Channel Islands between France and England) but are traceable to Domrémy-la-Pucelle, birthplace of Joan of Arc.
Their ethnographic work on 'Eddystone Island' (today known by its local name of Simbo) and in nearby Roviana, stands as one of the first modern anthropological field projects, and was the inspiration behind sections of Pat Barker's novel The Ghost Road.
Some of the data from the expedition appeared in Rivers' History of Melanesian Society in 1914, but most of their work did not make it into print until 1922, when Hocart began to publish a series of articles describing the core material.
With experience of the ancient Mediterranean, Polynesia and Melanesia, and South Asia now under his belt Hocart began publishing widely comparative studies on many topics, including that of Kingship.
Hocart's professional career took place at a time when British anthropologists were moving from an emphasis on diffusion and historical reconstruction to a more 'scientific' form of functionalism.