Hugo Obermaier

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Hugo Obermaier in Pamplona , 1924

Hugo Obermaier (born January 29, 1877 in Regensburg ; † November 12, 1946 in Freiburg , Switzerland ) was a German prehistorian .

Career

As the son of the royal student councilor Anton Obermaier, Hugo Obermaier grew up in a middle-class family. From 1886 to 1895 he attended the old grammar school in Regensburg. After graduating from high school (now Abitur ), he studied Catholic theology and history at the Regensburg Lyceum from 1895 to 1900 . Obermaier gained his first archaeological experience in 1897 when he helped the private archaeologist Joseph Fraunholz to research the Kastlhang cave near Essing ( district of Kelheim ).

In 1900 he was ordained a secular priest, but after a short time applied for a leave of absence in order to be able to devote himself to the study of classical studies. This was granted, and he then studied from 1901 to 1904 in Vienna the subjects of prehistoric archeology , physical geography , geology , paleontology , ethnology , German philology and anatomy . Among his teachers during this time were Moritz Hoernes , Albrecht Penck and Josef Szombathy . In 1904 he was with a study on the spread of humans during the Ice Age in Central Europe doctorate . Four years later he completed his habilitation on the subject of stone tools of the French Early Paleolithic . In the summer of 1908 he was working on archaeological profile recordings in Willendorf in the Wachau when the famous Venus von Willendorf was found.

In September 1909, despite resistance from Albrecht Penck, he became a private lecturer in Vienna. From 1909 to 1914 he took part in several excavation campaigns in the Spanish cave El Castillo . Since then he has been friends with the French paleolite explorers Émile Cartailhac and Henri Breuil .

In 1911 he accepted a professorship at the newly founded Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in Paris , which he occupied until the outbreak of the First World War . During this time he undertook numerous research trips to well-known archaeological sites in Europe, such as the cave "La Pasiega" ( Cantabria ) or to the rock paintings in the Spanish Levant . Thanks to the financing of the Paris Institute, he was able to take part in the excavation of the Klausen Cave near Essing in the summer of 1912 and 1913 together with Paul Wernert . During a stay in Spain in 1914 he decided to work at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid and in 1922 was appointed to a chair at the Complutense University in Madrid , which had been rededicated for him . In 1924 he became a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , in 1925 a full member of the German Archaeological Institute and honorary doctorate from the Medical Faculty of the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg . From 1922 he was a member of the Imperial German Academy of Natural Scientists in Halle (Leopoldina) and from 1927 a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

Scientific, personal and political reasons prompted him, in view of the approaching Third Reich in November 1932, to forego the appointment to the vacant chair of Max Eberts in Berlin one month earlier .

As a result of the Spanish Civil War , which began in July 1936 with Obermaier's stay in Oslo , he had to give up his chair due to political difficulties and professional rivalries. In 1939, he left Spain for ever to a professorship in Freiburg ( Switzerland ) to accept. There he died in 1946 after more than a year of serious illness in the local theologian convict .

Hugo Obermaier Society

Hugo Obermaier's scientific merits lie in research on the Paleolithic . Obermaier's synthetic representation of European prehistory in the work “The Man of Prehistory” (1912) contributed significantly to the Europeanization of research on prehistory at the beginning of the 20th century. On June 23, 1951, the Hugo Obermaier Society was founded on the initiative of the Erlangen prehistorian Lothar Zotz . The founding members included archaeologists , geologists , paleontologists, and anthropologists . In 1956 the society received the addition “for research into the Ice Age and the Stone Age”.

Publications

(Selection, in chronological order)

  • (together with Franz Xaver Kießling ): The plateau-clay-palaeolithic of the north-eastern Waldviertel of Lower Austria. Communications from the Anthropological Society in Vienna 41, 1911, p. 51ff.
  • The man of the past. Allgemeine Verlags-GmbH Berlin, Munich & Vienna, 1912.
  • El Hombre fosil. Colegio Universitario de Ediciones Istmo Madrid, 1916 (new edition as facsimile 1985)
  • (together with Leo Frobenius ): Hajra Maktuba. Primeval rock art in Little Africa . 1st delivery (of 6). Kurt Wolff Pantheon-Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft Florence, Pantheon and Munich, 1925
  • (together with Carl Walter Heiss): Iberian splendor ceramics of the Elche-Archena type. 1929
  • (together with Herbert Kühn ): Bushman art. Rock paintings from South Africa. Edited from the recordings by Reinhard Maak. Kurt Wolff Pantheon-Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft Florence, Pantheon and Munich, 1930
  • (together with Joseph Bernhart): Sense of History. A theology of history. Herder Freiburg i. Br., 1931.
  • (together with Adalbert Neischl ): The prehistoric and early historical fortifications on the Rauhen Kulm near Neustadt a. Kulm (Upper Palatinate). Dultz, 1913, 34 pp.

Literature about Hugo Obermaier

  • Moure Romanillo, A. (ed.): "El hombre fósil" 80 años después. Volume conmemorativo del 50 aniversario de la muerte de Hugo Obermaier. Universidad de Cantabria, Santander 1996, pp. 325-343
  • Christian Züchner: Hugo Obermaier (1877-1946). Documents of his life and work in the archive of the Hugo Obermaier Society in Erlangen. In: Madrider Mitteilungen , Volume 36, 1995, pp. 48-59
  • Christian Züchner: Hugo Obermaier (Regensburg 1877 - Friborg 1946). Life and work of an important prehistorian. In: Quartär , Volume 47/48, 1997, pp. 7-28, doi: 10.7485 / QU47_01
  • Christian Züchner:  Obermaier, Hugo. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 396 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Christian Züchner: Hugo Obermaier, Regensburg 1877 - Friborg 1946. (Chapter in: RT Hosfield, FF Weban-Smith, MI Pope (Hrsg.): Great Prehistorians - 150 Years of Palaeolithic Research, 1859-2009 In: Lithics. Journal of the Lithic Studies Society , Volume 30, 2009, pp. 143–152)

Web links

Commons : Hugo Obermaier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henri Breuil, Hugo Obermaier: Les premiers travaux de l'Institut de Paléontologie Humaine. L'Anthropologie 23, 1912, pp. 1-27
  2. ^ Hugo Obermaier, Paul Wernert: The Klaus niche near Neu-Essing (Lower Bavaria). Chapter in: Palaeolithic contributions from Northern Bavaria. Communications from the anthropological society in Vienna, Volume 44, 1914, pp. 53–55
  3. ↑ Hugo Obermaier's membership entry at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on August 10, 2015.
  4. ↑ Christian Züchner: Fifty Years of the Hugo Obermaier Society for Research into the Ice Age and the Stone Age. History and goals of the company. Quartär 53/54, 2006, pp. 9-20
personal data
SURNAME Obermaier, Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH regensburg
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1946
Place of death Freiburg in Üechtland