Hermann Schaaffhausen
Hermann Schaaffhausen (1816 - 1893) was a German anthropologist, wire of the banker of Cologne Abraham Schaaffhausen and Anna Maria Wachendorf of Coblentz, and brother of Elisabeth Deichmann-Schaaffhausen and Mertens-Schaaffhausen Sibyl.
Born with Coblentz, Hermann Schaaffhausen studied medicine then was registered on the short list for the functions of professor d' Université in 1844 and, the same year, was called at the university of Bonn.
In 1857, it was the first to examine the bones of the “Homme of Néandertal” and to announce this discovery, on February 4th, 1857 in Bonn, at a meeting of the Company of the lower Rhine for the Natural history and the Medicine, during which it showed the brain-pan found by Johann Carl Fuhlrott in Neandertal and qualified it prehistoric . Rudolf Virchow was one of those which disputed more than it could be a question of a predecessor d' Homo sapiens : he believed that the particular shape of the bone was the result of a disease rachitic. It is thanks to Hermann Schaafhausen that the skeleton was not sold in England but is always property of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum.
One can see in Schaaffhausen one of the large founders of the modern physical anthropology. That as well relates to the particular branches of this science, like Paléoanthropologie, as the institutionalization of this science via companies. It also contributed to found the German Company for Anthropology and was coeditor of the review Archiv für Anthropologie. The defense of the Man of Néandertal as particular race of man cost him his academic career: thus, in spite of its requests repeated with the ministry, it remained until the 50ème birthday of its doctorate extraordinary professor, C. - with-D. without pulpit and right to vote with the council of faculty.
Schaaffhausen was the cofounder of the regional Museum of the Rhineland. He lived close to Bad Honnef an elegant villa which exists still today. The crown prince Guillaume to Prussia frequently visited him when he was student in Bonn and sometimes placed at his place. In 1876, it planted itself the “oak of the emperor” in the garden of the villa.
In 1893, Hermann Schaaffhausen died in Bonn. Its tomb is with the Old Cemetery.
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