Otto Zdansky

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Otto A. Zdansky (born November 28, 1894 in Vienna , † 1988 ) was an Austrian paleontologist and paleoanthropologist . From 1921 he led the first excavations of the Chinese geological authority in the lower cave of the dragon bone hill of Zhoukoudian , where in the late 1920s several skulls of 400,000 to 500,000 year old fossils of the genus Homo , called Peking Man , were uncovered .

Life

Otto Zdansky studied at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate on March 21, 1921 in paleontology “About the temporal region of the turtle skull”. In the memorial book for the victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna, it says: "In 1940 the degree was revoked for racist reasons, since under National Socialism he was considered 'unworthy of a degree from a German university' as a Jew." the posthumously re-awarded doctorate .

From 1924 to 1927 he worked in Uppsala ( Sweden ) as a technician. In 1927 he received a professorship at the University of Cairo and held this until 1950, after which he went back to Uppsala and worked on his collections from the excavations in Zhoukoudian at the Evolution Museum of Uppsala University .

research

As an assistant to Johan Gunnar Andersson , Zdansky discovered the first fossil tooth in Zhoukoudian in 1921, which he later classified as belonging to Homo . In 1926 he discovered another tooth, which he described both - an upper molar and a lower premolar - in 1927 in the Bulletin of the Geological Survey, China as teeth of a fossil representative of the genus Homo . Davidson Black named these fossils as Sinanthropus pekinensis ("Peking Man") in the same year . They were later assigned to Homo erectus .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Memorial book for the victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna. On: gedenkbuch.univie.ac.at
  2. ↑ Otto Zdansky (1894–1988). On: evolutionsmuseet.uu.se
  3. ↑ New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Bulletin 19 (PDF; 930 kB) ( Memento from June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Vincent L. Morgan and Spencer G. Lucas: Walter Granger, 1872-1941, Paleontologist. P. 22 ff.
  4. ↑ Otto Zdansky: Preliminary notice on two teeth of a hominid from a cave in Chili (China). In: Bulletin of the Geological Survey, China. Volume 5, No. 3-4, 1927, pp. 281-284, doi: 10.1111 / j.1755-6724.1926.mp53-4007.x .
  5. ↑ Davidson Black : On a Lower Molar Hominid Tooth From the Chou Kou Tien Deposit. In: Paleontologia Sinica. Series D, volume. 7 Fascicle I, 1927
  6. ↑ Gary J. Sawyer, Viktor Deak: The Long Way to Man. Life pictures from 7 million years of evolution. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg, 2008, p. 127 f.
personal data
SURNAME Zdansky, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zdansky, Otto A .; Stausky, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian paleoanthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 1988