Robert Rudolf Schmidt

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Handwritten letter from Schmidt to Eugen Gaus dated June 4, 1911

Robert Rudolf Schmidt (born May 26, 1882 in Mülheim am Rhein ; † March 14, 1950 in Marquartstein , Upper Bavaria ) was a German prehistorian and archaeologist .

Life

Robert Rudolf Schmidt studied at the University of Tübingen and received his doctorate in 1907 from the geologist and mineralogist Ernst Koken with a thesis on The Ice Age Dwellings in the Swabian Alb . This made him the first in Germany and the second in Europe to receive a doctorate on a topic on ancient prehistory. Between 1907 and 1910 he examined about 30 caves in the Upper Danube Valley for traces of the Ice Age hunters, but only found what he was looking for in the Probstfelsen near Beuron .

In 1912 he completed his habilitation with a basic prehistoric work entitled Die Diluviale Vorzeit Deutschlands at the Natural Science Faculty of the University of Tübingen. Since 1921 he had a teaching position for prehistory . Until 1930 he was professor of prehistory and head of the Institute for Prehistory at the University of Tübingen. By the end of the First World War he had dealt almost exclusively with the Paleolithic and the Mesolithic .

There are several archaeological excavations and investigations to be mentioned:

At Sirgenstein, Schmidt was one of the first German archaeologists to apply the French terminology of the various Upper Paleolithic epochs to the sequence of layers of caves in the Swabian Alb .

In 1921 Schmidt founded the Prehistoric Research Institute, which by 1927 grew into the largest university institute in Germany in the field of prehistoric archeology, but formally remained part of the Geological Institute. He became known for the excavations carried out in the 1920s on the Federsee ( Riedschachen ), which were very progressive for the time . Schmidt is one of the pioneers of settlement archeology .

In 1930 he was dismissed because of financial problems at the institute at the University of Tübingen. In the background, however, there was also a lack of support among colleagues at the university and the subject, as Schmidt aggressively pushed forward and marketed many projects and his scientific work fell behind. In particular, Schmidt's student Hans Reinerth , who had completed his habilitation in 1925, pursued his own career.

In 1938 Schmidt investigated the Eeolithic hilltop settlement Vučedol in Croatia .

Since Schmidt mostly only published with his initials RR, his first names are often incorrectly given as Richard Rudolf or Rudolf Robert .

Publications

  • The late Paleolithic burials of Ofnet . In: Mannus 1st supplementary volume 1910, pp. 56-63.
  • The spread of humans during the Ice Age in Central Europe . 1912.
  • Neolithic settlements in Federseemoor 1-3. Augsburg 1930–1937.
  • The spirit of the past . Keil Verlag, Berlin 1934.
  • Vučedol Castle . Zagreb 1945.

literature

  • The search for the past. 120 years of archeology at the Federsee . Stuttgart 1992, p. 30 ff.
  • Michael Strobel: The Schussenried settlement Taubried I (Bad Buchau, Kr. Biberach). A contribution to the settlement structures and the chronology of the early and middle Neolithic in Upper Swabia. (= Research and reports on prehistory and early history in Baden-Württemberg 81) Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-8062-1494-8 , p. 28 ff.
  • Ante Grubišič: Arheolog Dr. Robert Rudolf Schmidt u Hrvatskoj (Archeologist Dr. Robert Rudolf Schmidt in Croatia). In: Osječki Zbornik 26, 2002, pp. 107-134.
  • Hansjürgen Müller-Beck : Lon (e) tal research from 1931–1941. Scientific project - project of the NSD Lecturer Association at the Scientific Academy in Tübingen - from 1935 under the patronage of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler . In: Egon Schallmayer and Katharina von Kurzynski (Ed.): Archeology and Politics. Archaeological excavations of the 30s and 40s of the 20th century in a contemporary historical context , (= Find reports from Hesse , Supplement 7 / Glauberg Research , Volume 1) Self-published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse, Wiesbaden 2011, 121-140.
  • Michael Bolus, Nicholas J. Conard : 100 Years of Robert Rudolf Schmidt's 'The Diluvial Prehistory of Germany' . In: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte 21, 2012, pp. 63–89.

Web links

Commons : Robert Rudolf Schmidt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Nur Hugo Obermaier in Vienna with his dissertation The Spread of Man during the Ice Age in Central Europe had received his doctorate in 1904. He completed his habilitation in 1908 with the topic The Stone Tools of the French Early Paleolithic and is considered the father of Spanish archeology.
  2. ^ Robert Rudolf Schmidt: The diluvial prehistory of Germany . Stuttgart 1912. p. 56.
  3. ^ Ice Age archeology on the Swabian Alb. The sites in the Ach and Lone Valley and in their surroundings , ed. by Nicholas J. Conard , Michael Bolus, Ewa Dutkiewicz and Sibylle Wolf, Kerns Verlag Tübingen, 2015, p. 142, ISBN 978-3-935751-24-7
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Robert Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmidt, Rudolf Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German prehistorian
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne-Mülheim
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 1950
Place of death Marquartstein