Franz Weidenreich - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Franz Weidenreich (born the June 7th 1873, with Edenkoben, in the Land of the Rhineland-Palatinat, Germany - died the July 11th 1948, with New York, the United States) was a Médecin, Anatomiste and German paleoanthropologist , which studied the human evolution.

It probably owes a great part of its celebrity with the fact that her name remains associated - as well as that of the Paléontologue French Pierre Teilhard of Chardin - with the Homme with Beijing ( Sinanthropus pekinensis ), this Homo erectus put at the day with Choukoutien (China) in the the Thirties. Work which it undertook at that time makes authority and is all the more invaluable as the original material resulting from this discovery (bones, etc) disappeared during the Second world war.

Biography

Franz Weidenreich made her studies at the universities of Munich, of Kiel, Berlin and with that of Strasbourg, where it obtained a Doctorat in medicine in 1899. It taught 1904 there with 1918, before having to continue its teaching with the Université of Heidelberg, of 1921 with 1924, because of the return of the Alsace to the France at the conclusion of the First World War. He was professor invited to the Université of Chicago in 1934.

By many manners, one can affirm that Franz Weidenreich was, among the scientists having studied the human evolution at the 20th century, one of most important and most influential. During first half of the 20th century, almost all the Anthropologue S believed that the Homme of Piltdown was the ancestor of the modern Homme. The man of Piltdown had characteristics that many scientists had defined as front being those of the missing link: a great cranial capacity and teeth close to that of the monkey. In fact, truths “missing links” that the anthropologists waited, were to prove to be the Australopithèque S, species which was precisely on the other hand (small cranial capacity and teeth close to that of the man). In the Years 1920, thirty years before analyzes with the Fluorure show, in 1953, that “the man of Piltdown” was a hoax, Weidenreich had examined the remainders and had announced that they were composed of the Crâne of a modern Homme and jaw of a Orang-outan, with the teeth arranged downwards. Weidenreich, being an anatomist, had easily been able to show that it was about a hoax. But, it was necessary thirty years so that the whole of the scientific community agrees to recognize that it was right.

Weidenreich also studied the Homme of Beijing ( Sinanthropus pekinensis ) to discovered from which he collaborated. On this occasion, during its stays in China, it became acquainted with the father Teilhard of Chardin, and confronted its analyzes with those of famous the Paléontologue French. Starting from the observations which it could make by examining the Man of Beijing, it formulated its clean Théorie of the evolution, called “ theory of Weidenreich of the human evolution . ” Being anatomist, it could highlight many the characteristic anatomical that the man of Beijing had in common with the modern Asiatique S. The “theory of Weidenreich” stipulates that the human races evolved/moved independently in the “Vieux world” since the Homo erectus until the Homo sapiens, whereas in same time there was transfer of genes between the various populations. According to this theory, the genes which had a capacity of general adaptation (like those of the intelligence and the communication) would have passed relatively quickly from a part of the world in the other, contrary to those which had only one capacity of local adaptation. This is contrary with the commonly allowed theories about the human evolution which consider the existence of a higher race moving of other races. A heat in favor of the theory of Weidenreich was Carleton Coon, whose work on the origin of the races was discussed.

In 1937, Franz Weidenreich visited the site of Sangiran, in Indonesia, where Gustav von Koenigswald had just discovered the Homme of Java and published, with this one, various work united on this discovery. In 1938, the two scientists jointly announced the discovery of a new cranium of Pithecanthropus ( P. robustus ). To the beginning of 1939, Koenigswald brought several specimens of Hominidé S Javanese to Weidenreich, which was with Beijing. The comparison between the Hominides of Sangiran and those of Choukoutien brought them to the conclusion which the specimens were narrowly related. They decided to give up the kind Sinanthropus , while bringing back all the specimens to the kind of older name Pithecanthropus . Later, Pithecanthropus was placed in the kind Homo as a Homo erectus .

Of 1941 with 1948, Weidenreich collaborated with the American Museum off Natural History of New York. It is in this city that he died the July 11th 1948, at the 75 years age.

Some works

The complete bibliography of the publications of Franz Weidenreich of 1899 with 1948 comprises 215 references. Among these many testimonys of the intense scientific activity of a man who forever ceased continuing his research on the human evolution, one can quote:

Shaves und Körperbau (Race and construction of the body), Julius Springer, Berlin, (1927)
Rasse und Geist (Race and spirit), J.A. Barth, Leipzig, (1932)
Apes giants and man (Gigantopithèques and the man), Univ. off Chicago Near, Chicago, (1946)

External bonds

“Franz Weidenreich (1873-1948)”, text of W.K. Gregory, L ''' American Museum off Natural History '', published in '' American Anthropologist '', n° 51, pages 85-90, (1949)

Franz Weidenreich and the '' Gigantopithecus '' (text of Russell L. Ciochon)

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