Robert Fritz Graebner (4 March 1877,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

– 13 July 1934, Berlin) was a German

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

and

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

best known for his development of the theory of ''

Kulturkreis The (roughly, "culture circle" or "cultural field") school was a central idea of the early 20th-century German school of anthropology that sought to redirect the discipline away from the quest for an underlying, universal human nature toward a c ...

'', or culture circle. He was the first theoretician of the ''Vienna School of Ethnology''. Graebner advanced a theory of diffusion of culture (Kulturkreise) which became the basis of a culture-historical approach to

ethnology Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...

. His theories had influence for a time in the field of

, and were also propounded by Franz Boas,

Clark Wissler Clark David Wissler (September 18, 1870 – August 25, 1947) was an American anthropologist, ethnologist, and archaeologist. Early life Clark David Wissler was born in Cambridge City, Indiana on September 18, 1870 to Sylvania (née Needler) an ...

and Paul Kirchhoff. He also induced the concept of "primeval culture". He was in Australia attending an anthropological conference when

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

broke out in 1914, and due to accusations of having hidden certain sensitive documents he was not allowed to leave Australia for the duration of the war. He is known for identifying six primeval culture complexes in the Oceania region, given in his book "Ethnologie": Tasmanian culture, Old Australian boomerang culture, Totemic hunter culture, Moitey complex (two class horticulturists culture), Melenesian bow culture, and Polynesian patrilineal culture.

Publications

*''Methode der Ethnologie'' (Method of Ethnology), 1911 *''Das Weltbild der Primitiven'' (The World View of the Primitives), 1924

References

German anthropologists 1877 births 1934 deaths {{anthropologist-stub