Wilhelm Freudenberg (paleontologist)
Wilhelm Freudenberg (born May 17, 1881 in Weinheim ; † January 28, 1960 there ) was a German paleontologist . In addition to his research work, he held a professorship in Göttingen and was curator for mineralogy and geology at the state collections for natural history in Karlsruhe .
Life
Freudenberg came from a respected Weinheim family and had a strong curiosity from childhood. He studied geology , palaeontology , prehistory and anthropology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and undertook numerous study and research trips. There he became a member of the Tübingen fraternity Derendingia in the winter semester of 1900/1901 . In 1906 he was employed as a state geologist at the Instituto Geologico of the Republic of Mexico. He later participated in numerous excavations in southwest Germany and Lower Austria and identified several previously unknown species. In the vicinity of his hometown Weinheim he dug the lower jaw of an approximately 500,000 year old primeval elephant, in the sand pit of Mauer , the site of the lower jaw of Mauer , he found archetypes of hyena and hippopotamus ( Trogontherium and Homotherium ), he examined outcrops from Tertiary and Quaternary in the Palatinate , in Rheinhessen and on Bergstrasse and published a comprehensive work on the mammals of the older Quaternary in Central Europe as early as 1914. For his achievements, he was given lectureships at the University of Tübingen and the University of Göttingen , which he no longer attended - the reason was gunshot wounds that he had sustained in an attack on his parents' house. Instead, he withdrew from the public and immersed himself in his studies, where he was more and more concerned with the search for prehistoric or pre-human remains. From 1920 to 1938 he found the remains of six hominid genera in Mauer, Bammental and Lützelsachsen. In 1944 he was temporarily imprisoned as Richard Freudenberg's cousin for making subversive statements.
Freudenberg's publications are now largely considered outdated. Criticism of Freudenberg began during his lifetime when he began to describe new hominid species based on individual bone fragments or teeth. His work is considered to be contradictory, as he has partially revoked some of his findings himself.
Frontal bone fragment from wall
On October 16, 1933, Freudenberg found a fragment of the frontal bone, like the lower jaw, in the sand pit of Mauer about seven meters above the find layer of the lower jaw of Mauer , which, like the lower jaw, may also come from Homo heidelbergensis , as the find is still in the same geological location despite the different depths Layer was recovered. In the 1980s, the age of the frontal bone fragment was determined to be between 430,000 and 480,000 years. However, evidence of belonging to the lower jaw is still pending.
Fonts
- Geology of Mexico: presented based on literature and based on our own research . Borntraeger Brothers , Berlin 1921 ( archive )
literature
- Dietrich Wegner, Wolfram Freudenberg: Wilhelm Freudenberg - an almost forgotten researcher of the wall "Grafenrain" . In Homo heidelbergensis von Mauer , University Press C. Winter, Heidelberg 1997
Individual evidence
- ↑ Membership directory of the Derendingia fraternity in Tübingen. October 1933, master roll no. 319
- ↑ Petra Bräutigam: Medium-sized entrepreneurs under National Socialism . Verlag Oldenbourg, 1997, p. 338
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Freudenberg, Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German paleontologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 17, 1881 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Weinheim , Grand Duchy of Baden , German Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 28, 1960 |
| Place of death | Weinheim , Baden-Württemberg , Federal Republic of Germany |