Gustav Schwantes

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Gustav Schwantes (1936)

Martin Heinrich Gustav Schwantes (born September 18, 1881 in Bleckede , † November 17, 1960 in Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel ) was a German prehistorian and botanist . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Schwantes ".

Live and act

Gustav Schwantes' father was a classical philologist and ran a private school. His mother was born in Sasendorf and through this he became familiar with the area around Bad Bevensen and the prehistoric monuments in the Bünstorfer Heide. Due to the early death of his father, he moved with his mother and brother Curt to Hamburg, where he attended the teachers' college. During the school holidays in 1897 at the age of 16 during a visit to his uncle, he took part in excavations of Iron Age urn grave fields near Uelzen, including the urn grave field of Jastorf and from 1904 the urn grave field of Nienbüttel . At the age of 18 he was in lively correspondence with the director of the Museum für Altertumskunde in Kiel, Johanna Mestorf , who in 1901, unaware of his teacher training, offered him the position of curator at the museum, which he refused. Through his contact with Carl Schuchhardt , Schwantes published his first articles on the urn graves of the pre-Roman Iron Age and on questions of chronology in the Prehistoric Journal . He was purely self-taught in archeology. Schwantes practiced the profession of teacher from 1903 to 1923 and last taught in Hamburg.

He completed his studies in ethnology , geology and botany at the University of Hamburg in 1923 with a dissertation on the Stone Age Lyngby civilization . He wrote several popular science books on the prehistory of northern Germany .

As a botanist, among other things, he dealt with the steppe flora of South Africa . For Parey's flower gardening (1958), he worked on the Aizoaceae family of plants , of which, together with Hermann Jacobsen, a comprehensive collection was created in the Kiel Botanical Garden as early as the 1920s . His mother, Dorothea Schwantes (1849-?) Was also an avid plant lover. Named after her Schwantes the plant genus Dorotheanthus from the family of aizoaceae (Aizoaceae).

In 1924 he became a permanent employee, from 1926 curator at the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology and Prehistory . In 1928 he completed his habilitation and became the first lecturer for prehistory at the University of Hamburg. In 1929 he became director of the Kiel Museum for Patriotic Antiquities . In 1931 he became an adjunct professor in Kiel . After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, he became a member of the specialist group for German prehistory in the Kampfbund for German culture and in the Nazi teachers' association . After the admission ban , he joined the NSDAP in 1937 . In 1937 he also became professor for prehistory and early history in Kiel. He is considered to be the founder of the Kiel School (prehistoric archeology) . In his scientific studies in the field of archeology, he took an interdisciplinary approach, especially with the inclusion of botany and anthropology for the reconstruction of old worlds. In 1946 he retired, but remained head of the State Office for Prehistory. He himself carried out the excavations of the Mesolithic site in the Duvenseer Moor. The Duvensee group was named after this site . Schwantes resumed the excavations in Haithabu . His students included Herbert Jankuhn , to whom he made the excavation management in Haithabu in 1931, and Alfred Rust .

Schwantes was married to Astrid Elise Schwantes geb. Wilberg (1887-1960). Kurt Dinter named after their genus astridia from the family of aizoaceae (Aizoaceae). The couple had a daughter. Schwante's wife and daughter died a few months after him.

Since 1910 Schwantes was a member of the Reich Association for German Prehistory , since 1930 a corresponding member, since 1934 a full member of the German Archaeological Institute . In 1939 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

Close-up of Schwantesia triebneri, named after Schwantes

Honors

After him the plant genus Schwantesia is Dint. from the family of aizoaceae named (Aizoaceae). Several types of plants have also been named after him.

Fonts (selection)

  • From primeval times in Germany. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1908 ( digitized version ).
  • The graves of the oldest Iron Age in eastern Hanover . In: Prehistoric Journal . Volume 1, 1909, pp. 140-162.
  • The importance of the Lyngby civilization in the Stone Age structure . Hamburg 1923.
  • Guide through Haithabu . 1932.
  • On the history of the Nordic civilization . Evert, Hamburg 1938.
  • The history of Schleswig-Holstein. 1: The history of Schleswig-Holstein in 1939.
  • History of Schleswig-Holstein. The prehistory. Vol. 1, part 1. Neumünster 1958.
  • The Cultivation of the Mesembryanthemaceae . 1953.
  • Flowering Stones and Mid-Day Flowers . 1957.

literature

Web links

Commons : Gustav Schwantes  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymic plant names - extended edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
  2. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 558.
personal data
SURNAME Schwantes, Gustav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schwantes, Martin Heinrich Gustav (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archaeologist and botanist
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Bleckede
DATE OF DEATH 17th November 1960
Place of death Hamburg