Carleton S. Coon

Carleton Stevens Coon (born June 23, 1904 in Wakefield , Massachusetts , † June 3, 1981 in Gloucester , Massachusetts) was an American anthropologist and archaeologist , professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania , lecturer and professor at Harvard University and president the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA).

Life

Carleton Coon was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts to a family from Cornwall . He developed an interest in prehistory and attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, where he studied hieroglyphics and acquired a profound knowledge of ancient Greek .

Then Coon enrolled at Harvard University, where he studied Egyptology with George Reisner . There he was drawn to the relatively new field of anthropology that Earnest Hooton taught. In 1925 he graduated magna cum laude . He then became a curator of ethnology at the University Museum of the University of Philadelphia. He then moved to Harvard University, where he gave lectures. From 1925 he carried out field research in the Rif area of Morocco , which became a political unrest after an uprising by the local population against the Spanish colonial administration. In 1928 he obtained a Ph. D. and returned to Harvard as a lecturer (roughly: lecturer), where he later became a professor. Coon's interest focused on trying to find an explanation for the different physical manifestations of the ethnic groups using Darwin's theory of evolution. For this he undertook studies in Albania (1929-1930), in Ethiopia (1933) as well as in Arabia, North Africa and the Balkans. Between 1925 and 1939 he worked on different sites; among other things, he succeeded in finding Neanderthal fossils. He also wrote a new edition of William Z. Ripley's book The Races of Europe from 1899 in 1939 , which he rewrote clearly and in turn dedicated to Ripley.

Coon, like his mentor Earnest Hooton , was primarily aimed at a broader readership that went beyond academic recipients. He has published The Riffians , Flesh of the Wild Ox , Measuring Ethiopia , and A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent (A North African Tale: The Anthropologist as an OSS agent). The latter was an account of his work in North Africa during World War II, in which he describes how he was involved in espionage and the smuggling of weapons to French resistance groups in German-occupied Morocco under the guise of anthropological field research. During this time he was attached to the Office of Strategic Services , the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States.

In 1948 Coon left Harvard University to take up a position as professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, which had an excellent museum. During the 1950s, he authored academic papers as well as many popular science books aimed at a wider audience, the most important of which was The Story of Man, published in 1954.

From 1954 to 1957 he did photography work for the United States Air Force , photographing areas where US planes could be attacked. This made him travel to Korea, Ceylon, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Taiwan, Nepal, Sikkim and the Philippines.

In 1962 Coon published the book The Origin of Races . In the introduction to the same, he explains that this book is part of the results of his project, which he conceived at the end of 1956. According to his presentation of the “races of Europe” in The Races of Europe from 1956, this is aimed at also representing the “races of the world”. He also wrote that he had been intending to follow the book The Origin of Races with a sequel since 1959 in order to achieve the goal of this project with both books. In fact, nine years later, Coon would publish a work called The Living Races of Man .

In the book The Origin of Races , Coon claimed that the human species would have been divided into five races before evolving into anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ). He also suggested assuming that these races evolved into Homo sapiens at different times . Book and theses were not well received.

The field of anthropology had meanwhile evolved from the typology of racial theories , and Coon's The Origin of Races was largely viewed by his peers as propping up racist ideas with outdated theory and outdated terms long discarded by modern science. One of his harshest critics, Theodosius Dobzhansky , despised Coon's book by describing it as providing "grist to the mill of racists."

Nevertheless, Coon continued to write, defend his work, and publish two volumes of memoirs in 1980 and 1981.

He died on June 3, 1981 in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Coons racial theories

Coon believed that the types of races that existed in his opinion could extinguish or partially replace other types; for example through armed conflicts or land grabbing. He claimed that the people of Europe were the result of a long history of racial development; Furthermore, that historically "different tribes within a population have shown different survival skills and often one has developed at the expense of others."

He also expressed the view that the “maximum chance of survival” of the European racial type had increased by replacing the indigenous peoples of the New World; the history of the "white race" would in turn include the "racial survival" of white "sub-races".

Coon's thesis on the "origins of races"

Spread of humans according to Coons in the Pleistocene , about 500,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Caucasoid races

Congo races

Capoid breeds

Mongoloid races

Australoid races

Coon modified Franz Weidenreich's theory of the polycentric (or multiregional) emergence of races. Weidenreich's theory states that the human species developed independently of one another in the Old World from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens sapiens ; at the same time there was a gene flow between the different populations during this period. Coon had a similar belief, namely that the anatomically modern human, Homo sapiens , had arisen from Homo erectus in five different locations separately from one another : “Like any subspecies, living in their own area, [they] passed a critical threshold of one rather more brutal to a more sapient-like state ”. In contrast to Weidenreich, Coon emphasized the gene flow far less.

Coon's modified form of the Weidenreich theory is sometimes referred to as the " candelabra hypothesis". Some interpret this as an approach that supports the possibilities of parallel evolution or polygenism . Others point out that Coon's model allows gene flow between populations, although the latter is not emphasized.

In his 1962 book The Origin of Races , he theorized that some races reached the level of evolution of Homo sapiens before others, which resulted in a higher level of civilization in some races. In this he further developed his theory of the five races. He claimed that what he called the " Mongoloid " and "Caucasoid races" ( Europids ) had produced individuals through evolutionary pressures whose endocrine systems were further developed, which made them more successful in the modern world of civilization. In this book he juxtaposes the image of a Chinese professor with that of an indigenous Australian, which he titled "Alpha and Omega". The latter was also used to illustrate that brain size correlates with intelligence.

“Wherever the genus Homo originated - and Africa is currently the most likely continent - it soon dispersed, in a very primitive form, within the warm regions of the Old World [...]. If Africa is the cradle of mankind, then it was just a mediocre kindergarten. Europe and Asia were our most important schools "

By this he wanted to express that both the Caucasoid and the Mongoloid races had further developed in their separate areas after they had left Africa in a primitive form. He also believed, “The earliest known Homo sapiens , as shown by some examples from Europe and Africa, was a long-headed white person of short stature and moderately large brain. “He went on to write:“ The negro group probably developed parallel to the white tribe ”(The Races of Europe, Chapter II).

"Caucasian Race"

In his book The Races of Europe, The White Race and the New World (1939), Coon often uses the terms “Caucasoid” and “white race” interchangeably - as in had become common in the United States, but not elsewhere. In contrast, the term "white race" was elsewhere limited to the designation for Caucasian peoples from Europe. In his introduction, Coon stated that he was interested in "the somatic character of peoples belonging to the white race". The first chapter is entitled “Introduction to the Historical Research of the White Race” and the last chapter, “The White Race and the New World”.

Coon said the European race type was a "sub-race" of the Caucasian race , one on which more studies were warranted. In other sections of The Races of Europe he mentions people who are "European racial types" and have a "European racial element".

He also said it was regrettable that studies of some of the main groups of European breed types were missing, which is in contrast to the state of other types. He wrote:

“For many years anthropologists have found it more amusing to travel to distant lands and research small remnants of little-known or romantic peoples rather than the drudgery of systematically examining their own compatriots. For this reason, sections in this book that deal with the Lapps , Arabs , Berbers , Tajiks , and Ghegs may appear more complete and vivid than those dealing with the French, Hungarians, Czechs, or the English deal. What is needed more than anything in this regard is a thorough study of the inhabitants of the most important and powerful nations in Europe. "

Overview of the theses Coons in The Races of Europe :

1. The Caucasian race has two origins, namely it consists of types from a Paleolithic population, which in turn is a mixture of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals , and Mediterranean types, which consisted only of Homo sapiens .
2. The Paleolithic populations are to be regarded as the actual indigenous peoples of Europe.
3. The Mediterranean types immigrated to Europe in large numbers during the Neolithic Age .
4. Today's European population could be explained as a mixture of survivors of the Paleolithic populations and the Mediterranean Homo sapiens .
5. By reducing the Paleolithic populations and the Mediterranean mixed population, the process of "dinarization" started, from which a hybrid with "non-intermediate" characteristics emerged.
6. People from the regions of Europe , Central Asia , South Asia , the Middle East , North Africa and Northeast Africa can be assigned to the Caucasian race .

"Mediterranean races"

According to Carleton Coon, the Middle East , from Morocco to Afghanistan, is the “cradle and home” of the Mediterranean races. Members of these Mediterranean races can also be found in Spain, Portugal, most of Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean islands; they formed the largest genetic element of the local population. In a darker-skinned form with finer bone structure, they would also be found as the main element of the population in Pakistan and northern India. Therefore, the Mediterranean breed is native there and the main element in the Middle East. The greatest concentration of a "highly developed Mediterranean type" falls among the two of the oldest Semitic-speaking peoples, namely the Arabs and Jews . Although neither party will like it, this is the truth, Coon said. The areas of greatest concentration of the "Mediterranean races" are precisely those where the oldest civilization originated. This was to be expected since it was they who created these civilizations, and the latter, in a sense, created them too. Even if the Mediterranean are often characterized by dark brown hair and dark eyes, as Coon emphasizes, they also have lighter skin types, even reddish or blonde hair and a wide range of eye colors.

Coon also claims that smaller Mediterranean people came to Europe over land from the Middle East during the Mesolithic period . Larger Mediterranean people ("Atlanto-Mediterraneans"), as seamen who built reed boats in the Neolithic Age, colonized the Mediterranean basin from the Middle East .

"Races of the Indian Subcontinent"

Coon's understanding of racial typology and diversity within the Indian sub-continent changed over time.

In The Races of Europe he regards so-called “Veddoids” of India (“Tribal” Indians or Adivasi ) as close relatives of other peoples in the South Pacific (“Australoids”), and he also assumed that this supposed human lineage (the “ Australoids ”) was an important genetic substrate in South India. Whereby he considered the north of the subcontinent to be an outer area of ​​the Caucasoid type.

When he co-wrote The Living Races of Man in 1965 with a co-author , he said that India's adivasis was a very old mix of Caucasoids and Australoids, which tended more towards the Caucasian than the Australoid, albeit with great variability. Furthermore, that the Dravidian peoples of South India were Caucasian; and moreover that the north of the subcontinent would also be Caucasoid. In short, the Indian subcontinent is "the easternmost outpost of the Caucasoid Racial Region".

Others reject Coon's representations as a typological approach to human history and biological diversity. Nevertheless, views are of historical interest and part of a long line of anthropological researchers who have tried to describe and conceptually grasp the biological diversity of the Indian subcontinent.

criticism

Contemporary reception

Coon's major work The Origin of Races (1962) received mixed reactions from the scientists of the time.

Positive kind

Ernst Mayr praised the work for its synthesis, which has an "invigorating freshness that will strengthen the current revival of physical anthropology."

In a book review, Stanley Marion Garn expressed criticism of the view of the emergence of breeds with little gene flow, which amounts to a parallel development. Nevertheless, he praised the work for its explanations on taxonomy and concludes: "an altogether pleasing report on the now famous origin of the races".

Negative kind

Sherwood Washburn and Ashley Montagu were heavily influenced by the synthetic theory of evolution in biology and population genetics . In addition, they were influenced by Franz Boas , who had moved away from typological racial thinking. Rather than warming to Coon's theories, they and other contemporary researchers viewed the evolution of the human species as a continuous linear progression, whereupon they heavily criticized Coon's Origin of Races .

The civil rights movement of the 1960s and changing social attitudes opposed racial theories such as Coon's, as they were used by segregationists to justify discrimination and deprive people of their civil rights. In 1961, non-fiction writer Carleton Putnam published a book Race and Reason: A Yankee View , in which he presented a popular theory that should justify racial segregation . The American Association of Physical Anthropologists called for Putnam's book to be condemned. Coon, who was the association's president at the time, resigned in protest and claimed that the action violated free speech.

Posthumous reception

William W. Howells wrote an article in 1989 noting that Coon's research "is still considered a valuable source of data".

In 2001, John P. Jackson, Jr. studied Coons' papers to research the controversy surrounding the reception of The Origin of Races in the 1970s; he stated in the abstract of his contribution:

"Segregationists in the United States used Coon's work as evidence that African-Americans are" juniors "in relation to white Americans and are therefore unsuitable for full participation in American society. The paper (he, JP Jackson) examines the interactions between Coon, the segregationist Carleton Putnam, the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, and the anthropologist Sherwood Washburn . The paper concludes that Coon actively helped the segregationists because he violated his own standards of scientific objectivity. "

Jackson found in Coon's archived papers repeated attempts by Coon to support Putnam's endeavors by providing intellectual support for the continued opposition to racial integration. At the same time, he warned Putnam of statements that could identify Coon as an active ally. Jackson also noted that both men were aware that their common ancestor was American Revolutionary War general Israel Putnam , so they were - at least distantly - cousins; but Jackson did not reveal how they found out about the family relationship or whether they had younger common ancestors.

membership

In 1943 Coon was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1955 to the National Academy of Sciences .

Publications

Scientific nature:

• The Origin of Races (1962), Alfred A. Knopf
• The Story of Man (1954), Alfred A. Knopf
• The Races of Europe (1939), The Macmillan Company
• Caravan: the Story of the Middle East (1951), Henry Holt and Company
• Races: A Study of the Problems of Race Formation in Man (1950), Charles C. Thomas
• The Hunting Peoples (1971), Little, Brown and Company
• Anthropology A to Z (1963), Grosset & Dunlap
• The Living Races of Man (1965), Alfred A. Knopf
• The Seven Caves: Archaeological Explorations in the Middle East (1957), Alfred A. Knopf
• Mountains of Giants: A Racial and Cultural Study of the North Albanian Mountain Ghegs (1950), Peabody Museum
• Yengema Cave Report (regarding his work in Sierra Leone) (1968), University Museum, University of Pennsylvania
• Racial Adaptations (1982) Burnham Inc. Pub.
• Principles of Anthropology (1942), H. Holt and Company

Fiction and memoirs:

• Flesh of the Wild Ox (1932), William Morrow & Company
• The Riffian (1933), Little, Brown and Company
• A North Africa Story: Story of an Anthropologist as OSS Agent (1980), Gambit Publications
• Measuring Ethiopia and Flight Into Arabia (1935), Little, Brown, and Company
• Adventures and Discoveries: The Autobiography of Carleton S. Coon (1981), Prentice Hall

Individual evidence

1. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica, keyword: Carleton Coon: " made notable contributions to cultural and physical anthropology and archeology " - Accessed February 15, 2014.
2. ↑ Encyclopedia.com: Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 2008, keyword: 'Coon, Carleton Stevens': " conducted many archaeological excavations " - Retrieved February 15, 2014.
3. ↑ Encyclopaedia Irania, keyword: 'ḠĀR': “ One of the most notable early excavations was carried out in the 1950s when an expedition under the direction of Carlton Coon worked at Ḡār-e šekārčīān (Hunter's Cave) near Bīsotūn, Tamtama Cave near Lake Urmia, Ḵonīk Cave in southern Khorasan, and most importantly at Kamarband and Hūtū Caves on the Caspian shore (Coon, 1951, 1957) "- Retrieved February 15, 2014.
4. ↑ National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives, entry: 'COON, CARLETON STEVENS (1904-1981), Papers: ( Memento of the original from April 1, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ".. involved in archeological studies of Stone Age cultures, especially through investigations of caves. "- Retrieved February 15, 2014.  
5. ↑ “Race” Relations: Montagu, Dobzhansky, Coon, and the Divergence of Race Concepts ( Memento of the original from July 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ^ Rowse, AL The Cousin Jacks, The Cornish in America
7. ^ Coon, Carleton S. (1962). The Origins of Races. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
8. ↑ HW Howells in: Carleton Stevens Coon 1904–1981: A Biographical Memoir , National Academy of Sciences (Ed.), Washington DC, 1989 (PDF)
9. ^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition. 2005.
10. ↑ The translations in brackets do not represent (any) book titles in German-language editions
11. ^ Carleton S. Coon: The Origin of Races , Knopf, 1962, p. VII
12. ↑ Harold M. Schmeck Jr. in the New York Times, June 6, 1981: Carleton S. Coon Is Dead at 76: Pioneer in Social Anthropology
13. ↑ Pat Shipman in: The Evolution of Racism: Human Differences and the Use and Abuse of Science , Harvard University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-674-00862-6 , p. 207.
14. ↑ National Anthropological Archives , "Coon, Carleton Stevens (1904–1981), Papers" ( Memento of the original from April 1, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
15. ↑ ^{a b c d} The Races of Europe by Carleton Coon 1939 ( Memento of the original from February 25, 2005 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
16. ↑ The Races of Europe, Chapter II, Section 12 ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
17. ↑ The Origin of Races: Weidenreich's Opinion. Sherwood L. Washburn , American Anthropologist, New Series, vol. 66, no. 5 (Oct. 1964) (pp. 1165-1167).
18. ^ An Attempted Revival of the Race Concept, Leonard Lieberman, American Anthropologist, New Series, B. 97, no. 3 (Sep. 1995), pp. 590-592.
19. ^ Coon's Theory on "The Origin of Races", Bruce G. Trigger, Anthropologica, New Series, B. 7, no. 2 (1965), pp. 179-187.
20. ^ Carleton S. Coon: The Origins of Races. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1962.
21. ↑ The Races of Europe, Chapter XIII, Section 2 ( Memento of the original from May 11, 2006 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
22. ↑ The Races of Europe, Chapter 7, Section 2 ( Memento of the original from May 20, 2005 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
23. ↑ ^{a b c d} Carleton Coon: The Story of the Middle East , 1958, pp. 154-157.
24. ^ The Races of Europe , The Veddoid Periphery, Hadhramaut to Baluchistan
25. ^ The Living Races of Man , On Greater India
26. ^ Non-Darwinian estimation: My ancestors, my genes' ancestors
27. ↑ unl.edu
28. ↑ Welcome
29. ^ Race reconciled ?: How biological anthropologists view human variation - Edgar - 2009 - American Journal of Physical Anthropology - Wiley Online Library
30. ↑ Origin of the Human Races, Ernst Mayr, Science, New Series, Vol. 138, No. 3538, (Oct. 19, 1962), pp. 420-422.
31. ^ The Origin of Races. by Carleton S. Coon, Review by: Stanley M. Garn, American Sociological Review, B. 28, No. 4 (Aug., 1963), pp. 637-638 /
32. ↑ W. Howells. "Biographical Memoirs V.58". National Academy of Sciences, 1989. nasonline.org
33. ^ ^{A b} John P. Jackson: "In Ways Unacademical": The Reception of Carleton S. Coon's The Origin of Races. In: Journal of the History of Biology. 2001, Volume 34, Number 2, pp. 247-285, doi: 10.1023 / A: 1010366015968
34. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter C. (PDF; 1.3 MB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved February 18, 2018 . 

Web links

• Carleton Stevens Coon Papers , National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
• Caravan: The Story of the Middle East
• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir