Maria Antonina (Antoinette) Chaplitskaya (October 25, 1884 - May 27, 1921) was a cultural anthropologist of Polish-Russian-British descent, known for her research on Siberian shamanism. Her works are preserved in three main publications: a study of the indigenous peoples of Siberia (1914), the book "My Year in Siberia" (1916), and a collection of lectures "Turks of Central Asia" (1918). In 1999, Curzon Press reissued these three books and added a fourth volume with her articles and letters.

Chaplitskaya was born in 1884 in the Stara Praga district of Warsaw to a family of impoverished Polish nobility. In 1910, she left Poland and continued her studies at the London School of Economics under Charles G. Seligman, and later at Somerville College, Oxford, with R. R. Marett, completing her education in 1912.

Marett supported Chaplitskaya in using her knowledge of the Russian language to study literature on Siberian tribes, which became the basis for her book "The Aborigines of Siberia," published in 1914. That same year, she became a member of the Royal Anthropological Society and participated in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, presenting research on the connection between religion and the environment in Siberia.

Before the outbreak of World War I, Chaplitskaya arrived in Russia with ornithologist Maud Doria Haviland, artist Dora Curtis, and Henry Asher Hall. After the war began, Chaplitskaya and Hall continued the expedition while the others returned to the UK. They traveled over 3,000 kilometers along the Yenisei.

Chaplitskaya took numerous photographs of Siberian inhabitants and collected extensive anthropometric data and descriptions of their customs. She received funding from the Anthropology Committee of the Pitt Rivers Museum to collect samples from Siberia, donating 193 items to the museum. She also gathered botanical samples for the Fielding-Druce herbarium. Chaplitskaya criticized the term "Arctic hysteria," emphasizing the importance of cultural relativism.

In 1915, Chaplitskaya returned to England and published her diary "My Year in Siberia" in 1916, which became popular. That same year, she became the first female lecturer in anthropology at Oxford. In 1920, her work was recognized with a Murchison Grant from the Royal Geographical Society for research in Northern Siberia. However, her financial situation remained unstable. After her scholarship at Oxford ended in 1919, she took a temporary position at the University of Bristol. In 1921, after failing to secure the Albert Kahn scholarship, Chaplitskaya took her own life.