Jan Jelínek (anthropologist)

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Jan Jelínek (born February 6, 1926 in Brno ; † October 3, 2004 there ) was a Czech prehistorian and anthropologist.

Life

He studied under Karel Absolon and Vojtěch Suk in Brno . In 1947 he was employed at the Moravian Museum in Brno, whose director he became in 1958. In 1949 he received his doctorate in physical anthropology from the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Brno University. In 1959 he became a postgraduate approved, in 1964 he completed his doctorate B from. After the fall of the Prague Spring , Jelínek was arrested and lost his position as director of the Moravian Museum for alleged embezzlement during field research in Australia.

Jelínek did research mainly on the Middle and Upper Paleolithic of Central Europe, prehistoric physical anthropology and rock art and carried out ethnographic studies in Australia. He carried out excavations in the Paleolithic sites of Mladec , Předmostí , Stránska Skála and Kůlna . He published, among other things, on the Czech paleolithic sites of Dolní Věstonice , Kůlna, Mladec, Ochoz and Šipka.

In 1962 the Anthropos Pavilion was opened in Brno, which presented archaeological finds in a novel way and was internationally influential in museum design. Jelinek worked with freely placed finds ( cave bear and mammoth skeletons ), life-size models and the reconstruction drawings by the well-known Czech painter Zdeněk Burian , which have shaped our image from the Paleolithic to this day. In the 1960s he founded a course in museology at Masaryk University . From 1971 to 1977 he was President of the International Council of Museums (ICOM).

Jelínek advised the American author Jean Auel on the archaeological background to her Ayla novels.

Works

Jelínek founded the Anthropos series and continued the anthropology magazine published in Prague before the war .

  • The large picture atlas of man in prehistoric times, Artia-Verlag Prague, 1972.
  • Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens in Central and Eastern Europe. Current Anthropology 1969.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Jelínek, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech prehistoric and anthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno
DATE OF DEATH October 3, 2004
Place of death Brno