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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 1 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 2 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. 3 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)). 4 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. 5 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 6