Emil Bächler

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Emil Bächler (born February 10, 1868 in Frauenfeld , † March 14, 1950 in St. Gallen ; reformed , resident in Kreuzlingen and St. Gallen) was a Swiss natural scientist and conservator .

Life

Emil Bächler was born on February 10, 1868 as the son of the primary school teacher Heinrich Bächler and Johanna nee Rüsch in Frauenfeld. Bächler, who initially completed a commercial apprenticeship and the teaching seminar in Kreuzlingen, studied literature and history at the University of Neuchâtel from 1894 to 1896 as well as botany , zoology and geology , among others with Albert Heim , at the University of Zurich .

As a result, he worked from 1902 to 1949 as a curator at the Natural History Museum St. Gallen (today: Natural History Museum St. Gallen ). In addition, in 1907 he was one of the co-founders of the Swiss Society for Prehistory , of which he was a member of the board until 1912. Bächler had been an elected member of the Leopoldina Academic Academy since 1932 . The Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings made him an honorary member in 1938.

Emil Bächler, who married Tobler, born in 1911 to Berta from St. Gallen, died on March 14, 1950, one month after he had turned 82 in St. Gallen.

Act

In addition to his work as a conservator at the Natural History Museum St. Gallen, Emil Bächler researched the speleology and hydrology of the Alpstein and excavated bear bones in the Wildkirchli caves , the Drachenloch above Vättis and Wildenmannlisloch at the foot of the Selun . Based on the results of his excavations, which mainly took place in the years 1917 to 1927, he developed the concept of the "Alpine Palaeolithic", which he presented in 1940 in an overall representation. The finds he unearthed led him to suspect that hunters who specialized in bear hunting and who followed a bear cult had settled in these caves in the Paleolithic . This view has been shown to be incorrect in the light of recent research. The term Alpine Paleolithic as a prehistoric cultural name no longer applies today.

As a board member of the Swiss Confederation for Nature Conservation, Emil Bächler was instrumental in the reintroduction of the ibex in 1911 , for which Bächler was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1917 . In the last years of his life he wrote a biography of Friedrich von Tschudis .

Fonts

(Selection)

  • Bächler, Emil: The Wildenmannlisloch . In: Appenzeller Calendar 206 (1927), doi : 10.5169 / seals-374770
  • The Alpine Paleolithic in Switzerland in the Wildkirchli, Drachenloch and Wildenmannlisloch. The oldest human settlements from the Paleolithic in Switzerland. Basel, 1940.
  • The Wildkirchli, the oldest prehistoric cultural station in Switzerland and its relationship to the Palaeolithic settlements in Europe , in: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , 41st year 1912, pp. 14–38 ( digitized version )

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harald Derschka : The association for the history of Lake Constance and its surroundings. A look back at one hundred and fifty years of club history 1868–2018. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , 136, 2018, pp. 1–303, here: p. 229.
personal data
SURNAME Bächler, Emil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss scientist and conservator
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Frauenfeld
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 1950
Place of death St. Gallen