Disruptions and changing habits: The case of the Tendaguru expedition

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes one of the biggest paleontological expeditions at the turn of the twentieth century. The Tendaguru expedition in the South of German East Africa, today’s Tanzania, took place from 1909 to 1913. Organised by Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde, the expedition took advantage of the German colonial enterprise, unearthing and transporting over 225 tons of fossils to Berlin. Among them were the bones of what eventually became the biggest mounted dinosaur in the world: Brachiosaurus brancai. This paper focuses on the issues that interrupted or delayed the visible outcome of the Tendaguru expedition and thus complicated, delayed, or interrupted a supposedly very unproblematic enterprise. By focusing on these complications, this paper aims to give new insights into the history of the Tendaguru expedition and its aftermath. At the same time, this episode in the history of transforming natural objects into objects of natural history serves to show the ways in which disruptions shaped and transformed both paleontological fieldwork and practical work at the museum. Thereby, the paper ultimately calls attention to the complex interactions between disruptions, narratives, and object habits. It further illustrates how museum objects were shaped by misfortunes and adversity, as well as broader institutional, political, and scientific narrations in colonial and post-colonial Germany, thus continuing to reshape the object habits of Brachiosaurus brancai.