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Online Biographical Dictionary of the History of Paleoanthropology
Matthew R. Goodrum general editor (2013)
Hermann Schaaffhausen (1816-1893)
Matthew R. Goodrum
Hermann Schaaffhausen was a German anatomist and anthropologist best
known for his studies of the Feldhofer Neanderthal fossils. Schaaffhausen was
born 18 July 1816 in Koblenz, Germany, the son of Hubert Josef Schaaffhausen
and Anna Maria Wachendorf. In 1834 he began his medical studies at the
University of Bonn where he studied zoology with Georg August Goldfuss,
anatomy with August Franz Joseph Karl Mayer, surgery and surgical anatomy
with Karl Wilhelm Wutzer, and mental illness and anthropology with Christian
Friedrich Nasse. After completing his studies at Bonn, Schaaffhausen entered
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Online Biographical Dictionary of the History of Paleoanthropology
Matthew R. Goodrum general editor (2013)
the University of Berlin in 1837 and received his medical doctorate on 31 August
1839 with a dissertation titled De vitae viribus. The following year he passed the
state medical exam and during the autumn he visited Dresden, Prague, Vienna
and Munich. He spent six months studying in Paris in 1842 and also visited
London in 1845. Schaaffhausen was appointed a Privatdozent (lecturer) of
physiology at the University of Bonn in 1844 and was promoted to Professor
extraordinarius in 1855. He was made Geheimer Medicinalrath (privy medical
counsellor) in 1868. Schaaffhausen remained at the university as a professor of
anatomy on the medical faculty for the remainder of his career.
Not long after joining the faculty at Bonn Schaaffhausen became involved
in research in physical anthropology and the study of prehistoric humans in
Europe, which he continued throughout his scientific career. He was a member
of several scientific societies, including the Naturhistorischen Vereins der
preussischen Rheinlande und Westphalens (Natural History Society of the
Rhineland and Westphalia) located in Bonn, the Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden
im Rheinlande (Association of the Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland), and was
an honorary member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie
und Urgeschichte (German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory).
He was made a member of the prestigious Kaiserlichen LeopoldinischCarolinischen Deutschen Akademie der Naturforscher on 25 November 1873.
Schaafhausen served as co-editor of the influential journal Archiv für
Anthropologie. He was also one of the founders of the Rheinischen
Landesmuseums located in Bonn. In addition to his scientific activities
Schaaffhausen served as president of the Vereins der Rettung zur See
(Association for Rescue at Sea).
Early in his scientific career Schaaffhausen discussed the idea of species
evolving in an article titled “Ueber Beständigkeit und Umwandlung der Arten” (On
the Constancy and Transformation of Species) published in the Verhandlungen
des Naturhistorischen Vereins der preussischen Rheinlande und Westphalens
(1853) where he declared that the immutability of species was not proven. This
was several years before Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species
(1859). However, most of Schaaffhausen’s research dealt with prehistoric
anthropology and paleoanthropology. In 1856 workmen quarrying stone from the
Feldhofer Grotte in the scenic Neander Valley, near Düsseldorf in northern
Germany, unearthed human bones in the cave. Johann Carl Fuhlrott, a teacher
at the Gymnasium in Elberfeld who was interested in geology and paleontology,
learned of the rare discovery and immediately went to recover the bones. He
obtained the top portion of the skull, a clavicle and scapula, the right and left
ulnae, a radius bone, the left pelvic bone, and the right and left femora. Fuhlrott
noted that the bones appeared to be completely fossilized, which meant the
bones might be extremely old. Recognizing the potential scientific significance of
these fossils, Fuhlrott brought them to Schaaffhausen for analysis.
Schaaffhausen was struck by the shape of the cranium and evidence for the
great geological age of the bones. Fuhlrott and Schaaffhausen presented papers
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Online Biographical Dictionary of the History of Paleoanthropology
Matthew R. Goodrum general editor (2013)
describing the fossils and the geology of the Feldhofer Cave at a meeting of the
Niederrheinische Gesellschaft für Natur- und Heilkunde (Lower Rhine Medical
and Natural History Society) in Bonn in 1857. Schaaffhausen published a paper
comparing the Neanderthal bones with other prehistoric human skeletons in 1858
(see bibliography below) and Fuhlrott published a paper in the Verhandlungen
des Naturhistorischen Vereins der preussischen Rheinlande und Westphalens in
1859 describing the geology of the Feldhofer cave and how the bones were
discovered. Fuhlrott and Schaaffhausen argued that the Neanderthal fossils
dated from what was then called the Glacial Period, which would mean they lived
at the same time as mammoths, wooly rhinoceros, and other animals now extinct.
Schaaffhausen identified several features where the Neanderthal cranium
differed markedly from modern human skulls. It possessed prominent eye-brow
ridges and the long sloping shape of the cranium indicated that it belonged to
what Schaaffhausen called a savage and barbarous race of ancient human. He
concluded that the Neanderthals were the original wild race of humans that lived
in Europe before other peoples migrated into Europe in prehistoric times.
1. Johann Carl Fuhlrott
The Neanderthal fossils generated
considerable debate among anthropologists
and it was not until after the discovery of
additional Neanderthal fossils at the end of the
nineteenth century and the growing
acceptance of Charles Darwin’s theory of
evolution that the Neanderthals began to be
accepted as an extinct species of ancient
human. Schaaffhausen continued over the
next thirty years to write about the Neanderthal
fossils and to investigate other prehistoric
human remains in an attempt to understand
the populations that inhabited Europe during the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.
Among the more important Paleolithic fossils that Schaaffhausen wrote about
were the human jaw discovered by Karel Jaroslav Maška in the Šipka cave, in
the Moravian-Silesian region of what is today the Czech Republic, in 1880 and
the human cranium unearthed at Podbaba, near Prague, in 1883 and described
by Anton Frisch (see Schaaffhausen 1883 and 1884). Many of his most
important anthropological papers were published in as a book titled
Anthropologische Studien [Anthropological Studies] in 1885. Schaaffhausen died
in Bonn on 26 January 1893.
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Online Biographical Dictionary of the History of Paleoanthropology
Matthew R. Goodrum general editor (2013)
2. Schaaffhausen’s illustration of the
Neanderthal cranium showing the
the side, front, and top views that
depicted the unusual form of the
cranium (the protruding bony ridges
over the eye sockets, the low
sloping forehead, and the long low
brain case).
3. Schaaffhausen also had this
artist’s reconstruction made
representing his best guess
at what the Neanderthals
looked like. This is one of
the earliest published
artistic portrayals of an
extinct hominid. (From
“Der Neanderthaler Fund,”
Archiv für Anthropologie
(1888)).
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Online Biographical Dictionary of the History of Paleoanthropology
Matthew R. Goodrum general editor (2013)
Selected Bibliography:
“Ueber Beständigkeit und Umwandlung der Arten.” Verhandlungen des
Naturhistorischen Vereins der Preussischen Rheinlande und Westphalens 10 (1853):
420-51.
“Ueber die Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts und die Bildungsfähigkeit seiner
Rassen.” Amtlichen Bericht über die ein und dreissigste Versammlung deutscher
Naturforscher und Aerzte in Bonn (1857):
“Ueber die Hautfarbe des Negers und über die Annäherungen der menschlichen Gestalt
an die Thierform.” Amtlichen Bericht über die ein und dreissigste Versammlung
deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte zu Göttingen [1854] (1860): 103-114.
“Zur Kenntnis der ältesten Rasseschädel.” Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologie und
wissenschaftliche Medicin (1858): 453–478.
“Ueber den Zustand der wilden Völker” Archiv für Anthropologie 1 (1866): 161-190
“Ueber die anthropologischen Fragen der Gegenwart.” Archiv für Anthropologie 2
(1867): 327-41.
“Ueber die Urform des menschlichen Schädels.” Abhandlungen aus dem gebiete der
naturwissenschaften, mathematik und medicin als Gratulationsschrift der
Niederrheinischen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Heilkunde zur feier des Fünfzigjährigen
Jubiläums der Königlich Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität (1868): 59-84.
“Die Lehre Darwin's und die Anthropologie.” Archiv für Anthropologie 3 (1868): 259-266.
“Sur l'anthropologie préhistorique.” Congrès d'anthropologie et d'archéologie
préhistoriques Compte Rendu [1872] (1873): 535-549.
“Der Neanderthaler Fund.” Correspondenz-Blatt der Deutschen Gesellschaft für
Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte (1878): 116-120.
“Ueber den menschlichen Kiefer aus der Schipka-Höhle bei Stramberg in Mähren.”
Verhandlungen des naturhistorischen Vereins der Preussischen Rheinlanden und
Westfalens 40 (1883): 279-305.
“Die Schädel aus dem Löss von Podbaba und Winaric in Böhmen.” Verhandlungen des
Naturhistorischen Vereines der Preussischen Rheinlande und Westfalens (1884): 364379.
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Online Biographical Dictionary of the History of Paleoanthropology
Matthew R. Goodrum general editor (2013)
Anthropologische Studien. Bonn: Marcus, 1885.
Der Neanderthaler Fund. Bonn: Marcus, 1885.
Wilhelm Baer, Hermann Schaaffhausen, and Friedrich von Hellwald. Der
vorgeschichtliche Mensch. Ursprung und Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechtes.
Leipzig: O. Spamer, 1874.
Secondary Sources:
Johannes Ranke, "Professor Dr. Hermann Schaaffhausen," Jahrbücher des Vereins von
Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande 94 (1893): 1-42.
E. Roth, "Hermann Schaaffhausen,” Leopoldina 29 (1893): 168-173.
Ursula Zängl-Kumpf, Hermann Schaaffhausen (1816–1893) – die Entwicklung einer
neuen physischen Anthropologie im 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt am Main: R. G. Fischer,
1990.
Ursula Zängl-Kumpf, “Hermann Schaaffhausen (1816-1893) and the Neanderthal Finds
of the 19th Century,” in Ralf W. Schmitz (ed.), Neanderthal 1856-2006 (Mainz am Rhein:
Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2006), pp. 45–53.
Matthew R. Goodrum
Professor of History of Science
Department of Science and Technology in Society
Virginia Tech
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