Download Karl Ernst von Baer and the craniological collection of the St

Karl Ernst von Baer and the
craniological collection of the St
Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Ken Kalling and Erki Tammiksaar
University of Tartu
The Estonian University of Life Sciences
Origins of craniology as a science
• In 1775 Johann Friedrich
Blumenbach (1752–1840) divided
mankind into 5 varieties (races)
• He believed humans to have a
common ancestry
• The latter idea was increasingly
challenged in the
19th century
• Further studies
were needed (i.e.
in craniology)
Challenges for physical anthropology
• Linguistics (the Indo-European theory) was raising
questions on the
coincidence of language
borders with „racial“ ones
• What has caused different
human types
• Quantitative methods in the
field of physical anthropology (can ethnic, mental etc
traits be measured?)
Cephalic / cranial
index by Anders
Retzius (1796-1860)
• K. E. v. Baer, prof. at the
Univ. of Königsberg (181734), was a follower of Blumenbach, incl. in the matters
of physical anthropology
Blumenbach to von Baer
August 29, 1827
Karl Ernst von Baer, 1792–1876, in 1834
• For Baer there existed:
– Anthropography – comparative
anatomy, physiology, pathology, race studies)
– Anthroponomy – relations of
humans with nature
– Antropohistorie – human’s
relations to other humans
(history, archaeology,
state- and legal studies)
• Baer explained human
dimorphism caused by
geographic conditions (he
was a monogenist)
• 1834 Baer became an
academician in St.
Petersburg, Russia
• Baer headed the ethnographic section of the
Academy, also its
anatomical cabinet
• Baer instructed voyagers to collect skulls
• Until 1857 Baer’s involvment in physical anthropolgy was modest
Alexander Theodor von
Middendorff, 1815–1894
By the middle of the century Baer had
aknowledged numerous topics facing the
science of physical anthropolgy
• Language borders do not coincide with „racial“
ones
• What are the main actors causing the emergence of different human types (is it environment, nutrition or culture?)
• As most of human types seem to be mixtures –
could there be found originaal types?
• EXTINCTION OF NATIONS!
Leiden
Göttingen
Basel
In 1858-59 Baer visited anthropological
collections in Europe (and declared them
all insufficient for a good scholarship)
Baer’s network, enableing him to achieve his
goals in improving the
skull collection, relied to
a great deal on the
Russian Baltic-German
community
A friend from student
years, J. F. v. Roth,
commanding Russian
troops in Caucasus, sent
skulls of fallen enemies
Johann Friedrich von Roth (1793–1880)
commanded in 1840–1860 Russian troops in Caucasian wars
Baer’s collaborators in Siberia
Julius Stubendorff (1811–1878),
Civilian governor of Yakutsk
Gustav Hasford, 1794–1874
Governor of West Siberia
In 1858 Baer stole rhaetoromanic skulls from the
bone-cellar of the church
of Chur in Switzerland.
He had to escape the town
as the priest wanted to sue
him for church robbery.
St. Martin church in Chur (1889)
• Some views of Baer concerning physical anthropology
Baer’s skizzes of different skull types
– Linguistic borders do
not coincide with morphologic ones (arranged his collection on
geographic principle)
– Humans have changed
during evolution, most
populations are mixed
– Mixed types are more
talented than „pure“
ones (an idea clearly
contradicting the then
racist mainstream)
– One shoudn’t use the
belittleing term „race“
– Was a monogenist
• In 1861 a gathering of
German anthropologists
in Göttingen
– An unified system for
skull-measuring was
agreed
– 1866 – the first periodical in the field
– 1870 – German
Antropological Society
founded
Conclusion
• Karl Ernst von Baer did a lot for improving the collection of
physical anthropology (collection of skulls) of the St
Petersburg Academy of Sciences and making it one of the
most important ones of this kind in the world
• Physical anthropology, systematically developed by K. E.
V. Baer, gained a lot of popularity in the second half of the
19th century
• In comparison with his contemporaries Baer’s approaches
within physical anthropology can be understood as
relatively progressive (as seen from modern viewpoint)
• In the first half of the 20th century racial theories already
had a strong influence on political ideologies
Source: http://megabook.ru/media/
In 1862 a Russian encyclopaedia for the first time
introduced a keyword „anthropology“.
Craniological collection headed by Baer was located at Kunstkamera
The topic was explained by Baer himself