Aleš Hrdlička

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Aleš Hrdlička (born March 30, 1869 in Humpolec, Bohemia [today Czech Republic] – died 1943) was an important figure in the development of anthropology, especially physical anthropology, in the United States.

Life

Born in the family of cabinet-makers, Hrdlicka spent his childhood in his native city where he finished elementary and middle school. When he was thirteen his family emigrated in the USA, and settled in New York. Hrdlicka worked together with his father in the tobacco factory until he was 19. In 1888 he fell seriously ill with typhoid fever, and it is the time when he first met his physician, Dr. M. Rosenblueth, a former Rabbi, who changed Hrdlicka's life forever. Upon recovery, and with a help of Dr. Rosenblueth, Hrdlicka finished the Eclectic Medical College of the City of New York, and in 1894 received a research position in the new State Homeopathic Hospital for the Insane, at Middletown, New York. Here he developed his interest for antropometry, the study of measuring human body, which he further specialized in Paris, under Leon Manouvrier. Upon his return to New York in 1896 Hrdlicka married Marie S. Dieudonnee, who died in 1918. The marriage was childless. Hrdlicka married again in 1920, and the second Mrs. Hrdlicka survives him, there being no children either.

In 1898 Hrdlicka visits Mexico, starting with the research on the indigenous people of Tarahumares, the Huichols, and the Tephuanes. In 1903 the new department of Physical Anthropology was opened at the National Museum in Washington (today's Smithsonian), Ales Hrdlicka becoming the first curator of the department, the post he held until his retirement in 1941. Hrdlicka founded the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in 1918, and in 1928 after his initiative the American Association of Physical Anthropologists was organized and established. He was a significant contributor to the development of physical anthropology in Czechoslovakia, where under the “Ales and Marie Hrdlicka Foundation” he established the Chair in Anthropology at the Charles University in Prague.

Ales Hrdlicka died in Washington, D.C., on September 5, 1943.

Work

Ales Hrdlicka is definitely one of the most fruitful scholars in the history of anthropology. Since his graduation from the New York Homeopathic Medical College in 1894 he produced, without a break, an average of eight papers every year until his death. All together there are more than 350 items in his bibliography. Hrdlicka’s restless spirit and the desire for discovery brought him to compilation of one of the most complete collections of humane bone material in the world. His collection of craniological material is described in detail in six-volume “Catalogues of Human Crania” in the U. S. National Museum (1924, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1931, 1942).

With his appointment to the National Museum in 1903 starts the phase in Hrdlicka’s life that he will remain the most famous for – physical anthropology. He studied the origin and evolution of human species in general, and particularly the problem of the origins of American men. In the period from 1910 to 1924, Hrdlicka conducted numerous studies on over 1000 subjects to support his idea of the origin of American people. In his books Physical Anthropology from 1919, followed by Anthropometry in 1920 and Old Americans in 1925, Hrdlicka claimed that the first Americans immigrated across the Bering Strait from Asian continent. The idea behind his claims was the fact that in Americas there were no primates from which the man would evolve. Hrdlicka organized several expeditions to Alaska, Kodiak Island, Aleutian Islands, and Commander Islands to collect evidence for his claims. According to Hrdlicka, all the races had a common origin - in the Old World - and had spread gradually across the globe. In 1927 Hrdlicka published the article The Neanderthal Phase of Man where he elaborated on those claims. Hrdlicka’s devotion for the physical anthropology culminated in 1918 with the founding of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology which he edited until his retirement in 1942.

Legacy

In the world related to physical anthropology Hrdlicka was definitely an authoritative voice. He greatly contributed towards the understanding of the prehistory of man in Europe, Asia, and America, which greatly remains accepted and supported by modern data. Hrdlicka was one of the first scientists to claim the common origin of all the races. He was also one of the first to hypothesize of how the races spread across the globe, and what are the origins of American people. His theory of migrations of Native American from Siberia to Alaska won him an international reputation. In many respects Hrdlicka can be considered the father of physical anthropology in the USA, and one of the great contributors in the development of world anthropology in general.

Hrdlicka remains remembered both in U.S. and in Europe. In World War II the United States liberty ship SS Ales Hrdlicka was named in his honor. Numerous museums in Czeck Republic carry Hrdlicka's name, one of the most famous which is in Prague - Hrdlicka Museum of Man.

Bibliography

Hrdlicka A (1899) Anthropological investigations on one thousand white and colored children of both sexes, the inmates of the New York juvenile asylum, with additional notes on one hundred colored children of the New York colored asylum. [New York.

Hrdlicka A (1904) Directions for collecting information and specimens for physical anthropology. Washington: Govt. print. off.

Hrdlicka A (1905) Brain weight in vertebrates. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.

Hrdlicka A (1906a) Brains and brain preservatives. Washington: Government Printing Office.

Hrdlicka A (1906b) Contribution to the physical anthropology of California : based on collections in the Department of anthropology of the University of California and in the U.S. National museum. Berkeley: The University Press.

Hrdlicka A (1907) Skeletal remains suggesting or attributed to early man in North America. Washington: Govt. print. off.

Hrdlicka A (1908) Physiological and medical observations among the Indians of Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. Washington: Govt Print Off.

Hrdlicka A (1909) Tuberculosis among certain Indian tribes of the United States. Washington: Govt. Print. Off. ISBN 0781240425

Hrdlicka A (1910) Contribution to the anthropology of central and Smith sound Eskimo. New York: The Trustees.

Hrdlicka A (1911) Some results of recent anthropological exploration in Peru, with four plates. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Hrdlicka A (1912a) Medical and anthropological publications. [n.p.

Hrdlicka A (1912b) The natives of Kharga Oasis, Egypt. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Hrdlicka A (1912c) Remains in eastern Asia of the race that peopled America (with three plates). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Hrdlicka A (1914) Anthropological work in Peru, in 1913, with notes on the pathology of the ancient Peruvians, with twenty-six plates. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Hrdlicka A (1916a) The most ancient skeletal remains of man. Washington: Govt. Print. Off.

Hrdlicka A (1916b) Physical anthropology of the Lenape or Delawares, and of the eastern Indians in general. New York: The Museum of the American Indian, Heye foundation.

Hrdlicka A (1918) Recent discoveries attributed to early man in America. Washington: Govt. print. off.

Hrdlicka A (1919a) Physical anthropology; its scope and aims; its history and present status in the United States. Philadelphia: The Wistar institute of anatomy and biology.

Hrdlicka A (1919b) The races of Russia (with 1 map). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Hrdlicka A (1920) Anthropometry. Philadelphia: The Wistar institute of anatomy and biology.

Hrdlicka A (1922) The anthropology of Florida. Deland, Fla.: The Society.

Hrdlicka A (1924) Catalogue of human crania in the United States National Museum collections. Washington: Govt. Print. Off.

Hrdlicka A (1925a) The old Americans. Baltimore: The Williams & Wilkins Company.

Hrdlicka A (1925b) The origin and antiquity of the American Indian. Washington, D.C.: G.P.O.

Hrdlicka A (1927a) Anthropology of the American Negro : historical notes. [Philadelphia: Wistar Institute Press.

Hrdlicka A (1927b) The Neanderthal phase of man. London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.

Hrdlicka A (1929) Bibliography of Dr. Ales Hrdlicka [1892-1928]. Prague: Imp. V. & A. Janata, N. Bydzov.

Hrdlicka A (1930a) Anthropological survey in Alaska. Washington.

Hrdlicka A (1930b) The skeletal remains of early man. City of Washington: The Smithsonian institution.

Hrdlicka A (1931) Children who run on all fours, and other animal-like behaviors in the human child. New York: Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company, inc.

Hrdlicka A (1934) The hypotrochanteric fossa of the femur (with 14 plates). City of Washington: The Smithsonian Institution.

Hrdlicka A (1935a) Ear exostoses (with five plates). City of Washington: The Smithsonian institution.

Hrdlicka A (1935b) Melanesians and Australians and the peopling of America. City of Washington: The Smithsonian institution.

Hrdlicka A (1937) Biographical memoir of George Sumner Huntington, 1861-1927. [Washington: The National Academy of Sciences.

Hrdlicka A (1939) Practical anthropometry. Philadelphia: Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology.

Hrdlicka A (1940a) Observations and measurements on the members of the National academy of sciences. [Washington: U.S. Govt. print. off.

Hrdlicka A (1940b) Ritual ablation of front teeth in Siberia and America (with five plates). City of Washington: The Smithsonian institution.

Hrdlicka A (1941a) Diseases of and artifacts on skulls and bones from Kodiak island. City of Washington: The Smithsonian institution.

Hrdlicka A (1941b) Exploration of mummy caves in the Aleutian Islands. [Lancaster, Pa.: The Science Press.

Hrdlicka A (1942a) Catalog of human crania in the United States National Museum collections: Eskimo in general. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Hrdlicka A (1942b) The peoples of the Soviet Union. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Hrdlicka A (1943) Alaska diary, 1926-1931. Lancaster, Pa.: The Jaques Cattell press.

Hrdlicka A (1944a) The anthropology of Kodiak island. Philadelphia: The Wistar institute of anatomy and biology. ISBN 0404116531

Hrdlicka A (1944b) Catalog of human crania in the United States National Museum collections. Non-Eskimo people of the northwest coast, Alaska, and Siberia. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum.

Hrdlicka A (1970) Contribution to the physical anthropology of California. Berkeley: The University Press.

Hrdlicka A (1989) The Aleutian and Commander islands and their inhabitants. Philadelphia: Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology.

Hrdlicka A, Fenner CN, Wright FE, Holmes WH, and Willis B (1912) Early man in South America. Washington: G. P. O.

Hrdlicka A, Merbs CF, Christensen NR, Tyson RA, and Alcauskas ESD (1980) Catalogue of the Hrdlicka paleopathology collection. San Diego, Calif.: San Diego Museum of Man.


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