Georg Christian Thilenius (4 October 1868 – 28 December 1937) was a German physician and

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

who was a native of Soden am Taunus. He studied medicine in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, and in 1896 was habilitated as an

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. Founded in the 16th century by Johannes Sturm, it was a center of intellectual life during ...

. Afterwards he participated in research trips to

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

and the South Pacific. In 1900 he became a professor of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

and

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

at the

University of Breslau A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

, and several years later (1904) was appointed director of the '' Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg'' (Museum of Ethnology,

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

),.SP Georg Thilenius - Interviews with German Anthropologists
(biography) a position he maintained until his retirement in 1935. As director of the Hamburg Museum of Ethnography, Thilenius coordinated the 1908-1910 ''Südsee-Expedition'', a scientific expedition to German administered territories in

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of approximately 2,000 small islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: Maritime Southeast Asia to the west, Poly ...

and

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanu ...

. Members of the research group included Friedrich Fülleborn (1866-1933), Augustin Krämer (1865–1941), Paul Hambruch (1882-1933), Otto Reche (1879-1966), Ernst Sarfert (1882-1937) and Wilhelm Müller-Wismar (1881-1916). Over 15,000 objects and artifacts from the South Pacific were brought back to Hamburg, which were documented until 1938 (23 volumes). He was a member of the ''Kolonialinstitut'' in Hamburg, an institute where he served as chairman from 1908 to 1910. He also worked as a lecturer at the institute, which was the predecessor of

Hamburg University The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen''), the Hamburg Colon ...

. He would later become director of the chair for

at the university.

Selected writings

* ''Ethnographische ergebnisse aus Melanesien I Theil, Die westlichen Inseln des Bismarck-Archipels'' (Ethnographic results from Melanesia part I, the western islands of the

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about . History The first inhabitants of the archipela ...

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

, 1902–03. Part II published in 1903.IDREF.fr
(bibliography) * ''Die Bedeutung der Meeresströmungen für die Besiedelung Melanesiens'' (The importance of ocean currents for the settlement of Melanesia) Hamburg 1906. * ''Das Hamburgische Museum für Völkerkunde'' (The Hamburg Museum of Ethnology),

1916. * ''Ergebnisse der Südsee-Expedition 1908 - 1910'' (Results of the South Seas Expedition 1908 - 1910), Hamburg 1914 ff. (as editor).

References

* ''This article incorporates translated text from an equivalent article at the

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''.

External links

* 1868 births 1937 deaths People from Main-Taunus-Kreis German anthropologists German People's Party politicians Academic staff of the University of Hamburg Academic staff of the University of Breslau German ethnographers People from the German colonial empire {{Germany-scientist-stub