The Shelf Life of Skulls: Anthropology and 'race' in the Vrolik Craniological Collection.

IF 0.7 1区 哲学 Q4 BIOLOGY Journal of the History of Biology Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Epub Date: 2023-06-23 DOI:10.1007/s10739-023-09716-w
Laurens de Rooy
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Abstract

The Vrolik ethnographical collection consisted of roughly 300 skulls, mummified heads, skeletons, pelvises, wet-preserved preparations, and plaster models, collected by Gerard Vrolik (1775-1859) and his son Willem (1801-1863). Most prominent in this collection were the skulls, of which 177 remain in the collection of present-day Museum Vrolik. These skulls-a troubling heritage of colonialism and scientific racism-are the central subjects of this paper, which considers the changing meanings and values of these skulls for racial science over approximately 160 years, between ± 1800 and 1960. These shifting meanings are analysed using the skulls themselves as primary sources, including the labels, numbers and handwriting present on them or their stands. Central topics addressed will be matters of classification, hierarchy, scientific bias, and disciplinary development of racial anthropology from the study and collection of idealized national types to a quantitative craniometry of populations. This paper demonstrates that during 160 years of study of this same set of crania, the skulls of white European origin gradually lost racial relevance and were increasingly normalized, whereas the skulls of dark-skinned people of African descent continued to be categorized in a typological racial scheme and as such were increasingly othered.

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头骨的保质期:Vrolik头骨收藏中的人类学和“种族”。
Vrolik民族志收藏由Gerard Vrolik(1775-1859)和他的儿子Willem(1801-1863)收集的大约300个头骨、木乃伊头、骨骼、骨盆、湿保存的制剂和石膏模型组成。这批藏品中最突出的是头骨,其中177个仍保留在今天的Vrolik博物馆的藏品中。这些头骨——殖民主义和科学种族主义的令人不安的遗产——是本文的中心主题,它考虑了这些头骨在大约160年的时间里对种族科学的意义和价值的变化,在± 1800年和1960年。这些变化的含义是以头骨本身为主要来源进行分析的,包括头骨或其支架上的标签、数字和笔迹。所讨论的中心主题将是种族人类学的分类、等级、科学偏见和学科发展问题,从理想化的民族类型的研究和收集到人口的定量颅骨测量。这篇论文表明,在对同一组头骨进行160年的研究期间,欧洲白人血统的头骨逐渐失去了种族相关性,并越来越正常化,而非洲裔深色皮肤人的头骨继续被归类为一个类型学种族方案,因此越来越不同。
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来源期刊
Journal of the History of Biology
Journal of the History of Biology 生物-科学史与科学哲学
CiteScore
1.40
自引率
12.50%
发文量
29
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: The Journal of the History of Biology is devoted to the history of the life sciences, with additional interest and concern in philosophical and social issues confronting biology in its varying historical contexts. While all historical epochs are welcome, particular attention has been paid in recent years to developments during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. JHB is a recognized forum for scholarship on Darwin, but pieces that connect Darwinism with broader social and intellectual issues in the life sciences are especially encouraged. The journal serves both the working biologist who needs a full understanding of the historical and philosophical bases of the field and the historian of biology interested in following developments and making historiographical connections with the history of science.
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