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40-492: In physical anthropology , protoculture is the passing of behaviours from one generation to another among non- human primates . For example, tool usage is learned between generations within chimpanzee troops. One troop of chimpanzees may exhibit a learned behavior unique from another troop of chimpanzees, such as various tool usage. Some chimpanzee troops have been observed consuming aspilia , for medicinal purposes, because it has been seen to remove intestinal parasites, and

80-426: A European origin of modern humans. In 1951 Sherwood Washburn , a former student of Hooton, introduced a "new physical anthropology." He changed the focus from racial typology to concentrate upon the study of human evolution, moving away from classification towards evolutionary process. Anthropology expanded to include paleoanthropology and primatology . The 20th century also saw the modern synthesis in biology:

120-483: A cautionary example of racial bias in the science of human differences". Research based on the discovery of some of Morton's original data by University of Pennsylvania anthropology doctoral student Paul Wolff Mitchell in 2018 argues that Morton was nevertheless guilty of bias, though not in data collection. Mitchell argues that Morton's interpretation of his data was arbitrary and tendentious; he investigated averages and ignored variations in skull size so large that there

160-533: A racial hierarchy which put Caucasians on the top rung and Africans on the bottom. His skull measurements (by volume) then came to serve as "evidence" for racial stereotypes. He described the Caucasian as "distinguished by the facility with which it attains the highest intellectual endowments"; Native Americans were described as "averse to cultivation, and slow in acquiring knowledge; restless, revengeful, and fond of war, and wholly destitute of maritime adventure" and

200-430: A small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. He was reputed to hold the largest collection of skulls, on which he based his research. He claimed that each race had a separate origin, and that a descending order of intelligence could be discerned that placed Caucasians at the pinnacle and Negroes at the lowest point, with various other race groups in between. His research of ancient Egyptians

240-556: A soft place to sit when they are tired of standing. He explained regional variations in human features as the result of different climates. He also wrote about physiognomy , an idea derived from writings in the Hippocratic Corpus . Scientific physical anthropology began in the 17th to 18th centuries with the study of racial classification ( Georgius Hornius , François Bernier , Carl Linnaeus , Johann Friedrich Blumenbach ). The first prominent physical anthropologist,

280-455: Is otherwise unpalatable. This article relating to anthropology is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Biological anthropology As a subfield of anthropology, biological anthropology itself is further divided into several branches. All branches are united in their common orientation and/or application of evolutionary theory to understanding human biology and behavior. Biological Anthropology looks different today from

320-475: Is seen by some as the origin of scientific racism . Morton claimed the Bible supported polygenism, and working in a biblical framework, his theory stated that each race had been created separately and each was given specific, irrevocable characteristics. After inspecting three mummies from ancient Egyptian catacombs, Morton concluded that Caucasians and Negroes were already distinct three thousand years ago. Since

360-617: The Academy of Natural Sciences . The collection was transferred to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in 1966. In 2021, the University of Pennsylvania Museum apologized for the unethical collection and promised to repatriate the remains of the people whose skulls were collected by Morton. The museum has promised to provide burials for 13 skulls of Black Philadelphians. In January 2024, 19 skulls from

400-770: The Copts as being a mixed community, derived from the Caucasian and Negro, and a large proportion of them can be regarded as mullatos . Morton wrote that Egyptian Fellahs are the lineal and least mixed descendants of the ancient Egyptians, he originally believed the modern Nubians are a mixed race of Arabs and Negroes, and are not descendants of the monumental Ethiopians . Samuel Morton later addressed several letters to George Gliddon , and stated that he modified many of his old views on ancient Egypt, believing them to be similar to Barabra (northern Nubian) populations, but not Negroes On 26 February 1846 he wrote: "I am more than ever confirmed in my old sentiment, that Northern Africa

440-500: The Africans he described as "joyous, flexible, and indolent; while the many nations which compose this race present a singular diversity of intellectual character, of which the far extreme is the lowest grade of humanity". Morton's followers, particularly Josiah C. Nott and George Gliddon in their monumental tribute to Morton's work, Types of Mankind (1854), carried Morton's ideas further and backed up his findings which supported

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480-411: The Bible indicated that Noah's Ark had washed up on Mount Ararat , Morton claimed that Noah's sons could not possibly account for every race on earth. According to Morton's theory of polygenesis, races have been separate since the start. Morton claimed that he could define the intellectual ability of a race by the skull capacity. A large volume meant a large brain and high intellectual capacity, and

520-842: The Cretaceous Group of the United States and Illustrations of Pulmonary Consumption in 1834. His first medical essay, on the use of cornine in intermittent fever was published in the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences in 1825. His bibliography includes Hybridity in Animals and Plants (1847), Additional Observation on Hybridity (1851), and An Illustrated System of Human Anatomy (1849). Born in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, Morton

560-620: The Egyptian race as the indigenous people of the valley of the Nile. Not Asiatics in any sense of the word, but autochthones of the country, and the authors of their own civilization. This view, which you will recollect is that of Champollion , Heeren, and others [excepting only that they do not apply the word indigenous to the Egyptians], in nowise conflicts with their Caucasian position; for the Caucasian group had many primordial centres, of which

600-589: The Egyptians represent one." In a letter to Mr. Bartlett on Dec. 1, 1846, he wrote: "My later investigations have confirmed me in the opinion, that the valley of the Nile was inhabited by an indigenous race, before the invasion of the Hamitic and other Asiatic nations; and that this primeval people, who occupied the whole of Northern Africa, bore much the same relation to the Berber or Berabra tribes of Nubia, that

640-582: The Egyptians. They never came from Asia, but are the indigenous or aboriginal inhabitants of the valley of the Nile. I have taken this position in my letter to Mr. J.R. Bartlett (New York Ethnological Soc. Journal, I.): every day has verified it, and your drawings settle it forever in my mind. It has cost me a mental struggle to acknowledge this conviction, but I can withhold it no longer." In another letter to Gliddon, January 30, 1850: "You allude to my altered views in Ethnology; but it all consists in regarding

680-491: The German physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) of Göttingen , amassed a large collection of human skulls ( Decas craniorum , published during 1790–1828), from which he argued for the division of humankind into five major races (termed Caucasian , Mongolian , Aethiopian , Malayan and American ). In the 19th century, French physical anthropologists, led by Paul Broca (1824–1880), focused on craniometry while

720-525: The German tradition, led by Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), emphasized the influence of environment and disease upon the human body. In the 1830s and 40s, physical anthropology was prominent in the debate about slavery , with the scientific, monogenist works of the British abolitionist James Cowles Prichard (1786–1848) opposing those of the American polygenist Samuel George Morton (1799–1851). In

760-773: The Morton collection were interred in two mausolea in Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, Pennsylvania . In a 1978 paper and later in The Mismeasure of Man (1981), Stephen Jay Gould asserted that Morton had, perhaps because of an unconscious bias, selectively reported data, manipulated sample compositions, made analytical errors, and mismeasured skulls in order to support his prejudicial views on intelligence differences between different populations. Gould's book became widely read and Morton came to be considered one of

800-426: The average cranial capacities that Morton reported represent his sample accurately." The journal stated that Gould's opposition to racism may have biased his interpretation of Morton's data, but also noted that "Lewis and his colleagues have their own motivations. Several in the group have an association with the University of Pennsylvania , to whom Morton donated his collection of skulls, and have an interest in seeing

840-604: The biggest brains, averaging 87 cubic inches (1,426 cc), Indians were in the middle with an average of 80 cubic inches (1,344 cc) and Negroes had the smallest brains with an average of 78 cubic inches (1,278 cc). Morton believed that the skulls of each race were so different that a wise creator from the beginning had created each race and positioned them in separate homelands to dwell in. Morton believed that cranial capacity determined intellectual ability, and he used his craniometric evidence in conjunction with his analysis of anthropological literature then available to argue in favor of

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880-407: The bottom to deities at the top. This became the main system through which scholars thought about nature for the next roughly 2,000 years. Plato's student Aristotle ( c. 384–322 BC) observed in his History of Animals that human beings are the only animals to walk upright and argued, in line with his teleological view of nature, that humans have buttocks and no tails in order to give them

920-411: The hands of the person to whom you confided them, I last night received Lepsius's "Chronologie," and the tin case of fac-simile drawings. These, when studied in connection with the Egyptian heads [skulls], and especially with the small series sent me [from Memphis] by your brother William [seventeen in number, and very ancient,], compel me to recant so much of my published opinions as respects the origin of

960-403: The hominin fossil record—then the focus shifts to human biological variation. Some editors, see below, have rooted the field even deeper than formal science. Attempts to study and classify human beings as living organisms date back to ancient Greece. The Greek philosopher Plato ( c. 428– c. 347 BC) placed humans on the scala naturae , which included all things, from inanimate objects at

1000-510: The late 19th century, German-American anthropologist Franz Boas (1858–1942) strongly impacted biological anthropology by emphasizing the influence of culture and experience on the human form. His research showed that head shape was malleable to environmental and nutritional factors rather than a stable "racial" trait. However, scientific racism still persisted in biological anthropology, with prominent figures such as Earnest Hooton and Aleš Hrdlička promoting theories of racial superiority and

1040-551: The most prominent cases of the effects of unconscious bias in data collection, and as one of the main figures in the early history of scientific racism. Subsequently, two separate studies of Morton's data and methods, one conducted in 1988 and the other in 2011, argued that Gould had overstated or misrepresented the case, and that Morton's measurements were essentially correct. In the latter study, entitled "The Mismeasure of Science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on Skulls and Bias" and authored by six anthropologists , it

1080-468: The notion of polygenism – the premise that the different races were separately created by God. The publication of Charles Darwin 's On the Origin of Species in 1859 changed the nature of the scholarly debate. Morton amassed over 1,000 human skulls. Some of the skulls that Morton collected and measured include those of enslaved people. Morton amassed his collection of human skulls when he worked at

1120-426: The reconciling of Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel 's research on heredity. Advances in the understanding of the molecular structure of DNA and the development of chronological dating methods opened doors to understanding human variation, both past and present, more accurately and in much greater detail. Samuel George Morton Samuel George Morton (January 26, 1799 – May 15, 1851)

1160-598: The separation of races, along with the work of Louis Agassiz , was also used by those who favoured slavery in the United States, with the Charleston Medical Journal noting at his death that "We of the South should consider him as our benefactor for aiding most materially in giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race." Morton claimed in his Crania Americana that the Caucasians had

1200-514: The valuable but understudied skull collection freed from the stigma of bias and did not accept Gould's theory "that the scientific method is inevitably tainted by bias." A 2014 review of the paper by University of Pennsylvania philosophy professor Michael Weisberg , tended to support Gould's original accusations, concluding that "there is prima facie evidence of a racial bias in Morton's measurements". Weisberg concludes that although Gould did commit mistakes in his own treatment, Morton's work "remains

1240-437: The way it did even twenty years ago. Even the name is relatively new, having been 'physical anthropology' for over a century, with some practitioners still applying that term. Biological anthropologists look back to the work of Charles Darwin as a major foundation for what they do today. However, if one traces the intellectual genealogy back to physical anthropology's beginnings—before the discovery of much of what we now know as

Protoculture - Misplaced Pages Continue

1280-484: Was an American physician, natural scientist , and writer. As one of the early figures of scientific racism , he argued against monogenism , the single creation story of the Bible, instead supporting polygenism , a theory of multiple racial creations. He was a prolific writer of books on various subjects from 1823 to 1851. He wrote Geological Observations in 1828, and both Synopsis of the Organic Remains of

1320-452: Was concluded that the bias came from Gould, who failed to examine and remeasure the crania in order to determine Morton's level of accuracy. However, this study was reviewed in an editorial in Nature , which recommended a degree of caution, stating "the critique leaves the majority of Gould's work unscathed," and noted that "because they couldn't measure all the skulls, they do not know whether

1360-578: Was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1828 and the American Antiquarian Society in 1844. He is buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery , Philadelphia. Samuel George Morton is often thought of as the originator of "American School" ethnology , a school of thought in antebellum American science that claimed the difference between humans was one of species rather than variety and

1400-534: Was held at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia until 1966, when it was transferred to the Penn Museum , where it is presently curated. Morton's theories were very popular in his day, and he was a highly respected physician and scientist. The anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička called Morton "the father of American physical anthropology". Crispin Bates has noted that Morton's "systematic justification" for

1440-598: Was meant to show that this racial hierarchy had always existed and should remain in place. When confronted with evidence that many ancient Egyptians had dark skin like other Africans, Morton used skull measurements to corroborate the words of Georges Curvier : " whatever may have been the hue of their skin, they belonged to the same race with ourselves." Aside from this occasionally dark-skinned Caucasian ruling class, Morton's skull measurements led him to admit "Negroes were numerous in Egypt but their social position in ancient times

1480-460: Was peopled by an indigenous and aboriginal people, who were dispossessed by Asiatic tribes. These aborigines could not have been Negroes, because the latter were never adapted to the climate, and are nowhere now, nor ever have been, inhabitants of these latitudes. Were they Berabra? - or some better race, more nearly allied to the Arabian race?" In another letter to Gliddon, December 14, 1849: "By

1520-637: Was raised as a Quaker and educated at Westtown School and the University of Pennsylvania , from where he graduated in 1820. He then earned an advanced degree from the University of Edinburgh , in Scotland , and began to practice medicine in Philadelphia in 1824. He was one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Medical College in Philadelphia and served as its professor of anatomy from 1839 until his resignation in 1843. He

1560-479: Was significant overlap. A contemporary of Morton, Friedrich Tiedemann , had collected almost identical skull data and drawn conclusions opposite to Morton's on the basis of this overlap, arguing strongly against any conception of a racial hierarchy. Samuel George Morton believed that the Nile Valley in both Egypt and Sudan was originally populated by a branch of the Caucasian race. Furthermore, he considered

1600-521: Was the same that it now is, that of servants and slaves." Morton's scholarship greatly contributed to Egyptology and several other disciplines adopting the Hamitic Hypothesis , the idea that civilization is antithetical to Negroes and a legacy of the Caucasian race such that any evidence of civilization in Africa must have derived from Caucasian presence or influence. Morton's skull collection

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