Hugo Obermaier (29 January 1877, in

Regensburg Regensburg (historically known in English as Ratisbon) is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the rivers Danube, Naab and Regen (river), Regen, Danube's northernmost point. It is the capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the ...

– 12 November 1946, in

Fribourg or is the capital of the Cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Canton of Fribourg, Fribourg and district of Sarine (district), La Sarine. Located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss Plateau, it is a major economic, adminis ...

) was a distinguished Spanish-German

prehistorian Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

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 taught at various European centres of learning. Although he was born in Germany, he was later naturalized as a Spanish citizen in 1924. He is particularly associated with his work on the diffusion of mankind in Europe during the

Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...

, and in connection with north Spanish

cave art In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric art, prehistoric origin. These paintings were often c ...

, and resisted placing his science at the disposal of nationalistic and racialist interests in the Germany of the 1930s.This article is translated from the German Wikipedia, August 2008. The principal source is the biography by the Hugo Obermaier Society for Palaolithic Research, indicated among the external links

Career

Hugo Obermaier spent his childhood and the early part of his student years in

. In 1900 he was ordained as a

diocesan priest In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

and between 1901 and 1904 he studied in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

the subjects of

Prehistoric archaeology Prehistoric archaeology is a subfield of archaeology, which deals specifically with artefacts, civilisations and other materials from societies that existed before any form of writing system or historical record. Often the field focuses on ages ...

physical geography Physical geography (also known as physiography) is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, h ...

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

palaeontology Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geo ...

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 ...

, German

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

and human anatomy. Among his teachers at this time the most important were Albrecht Penck, Josef Szombathy and Moritz Hoernes. In 1904, he gained a doctorate with a dissertation on ''The Diffusion of Humankind during the Ice Age in Middle Europe''. Four years later, he qualified as a lecturer and in 1909, despite opposition from Albrecht Penck, his former teacher, he became an unsalaried university lecturer in Vienna. In 1911 he took up a professorial post at the newly founded Institute of Human Palaeontology in Paris, which he held until the outbreak of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. In that period he was working with Wernert and

Henri Breuil Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil (28 February 1877 – 14 August 1961), often referred to as Abbé Breuil (), was a French Catholic Church, Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist. He studied cave art in the Somme ( ...

at the caves of El Castillo and the

Cueva de La Pasiega Cueva de La Pasiega, or Cave of La Pasiega, situated in the Spain, Spanish municipality of Puente Viesgo, is one of the most important monuments of Paleolithic art in Cantabria. It is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List since July 2008, as ...

in Cantabria. While in Spain (1914) he next decided to work at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, but changing again in 1922 to a professorship at the Complutense University in Madrid. He dug at the

Cave of Altamira The Cave of Altamira ( ; ) is a cave complex, located near the historic town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain. It is renowned for prehistoric cave painting, cave art featuring charcoal drawings and polychrome paintings of contemporary ...

in 1924-5, and collaborated with Breuil in their publication in 1935. His work with

Frobenius Frobenius is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Ferdinand Georg Frobenius (1849–1917), mathematician ** Frobenius algebra ** Frobenius endomorphism ** Frobenius inner product ** Frobenius norm ** Frobenius method ** Frobenius g ...

included the study of the Neolithic rock engravings of south Oran in 1925. Scientific, personal and political considerations were the cause for his refusal to go back to Germany when, in 1933, he declined the invitation to take up the Max Ebert Chair in Berlin. After the outbreak of the civil war, in 1939 he left there to take up a Professorship in Fribourg in Switzerland. Hugo Obermaier died after a long illness in the Theological hostel in Fribourg.

Hugo Obermaier Society

The scientific contributions of H. Obermaier lay primarily in research into the Old Stone Age, which he was one of the first to recognise as being a field for serious scientific research. In order to pay respect to his memory and equally to advance scientific investigations into the

Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

, on 23 June 1951 archaeologists, geologists, palaeontologists and anthropologists formed a society led by Lothar Zotz. In 1956 the name "Hugo Obermaier Society for Research into the Ice Age and the Stone Age" was adopted.

Selected publications

* (with Franz Xaver Kießling) 'Das Plateaulehm-Paläolithikum des nordöstlichen Waldviertels von Niederösterreich' ''Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien'' 41, 1911, p. 51ff. * ''Der Mensch der Vorzeit.'' (Allgemeine Verlags-GmbH Berlin, München & Wien) (no year - about 1912). * (with Henri Breuil & H. Alcalde Del Río) ''La Pasiega à Puente Viesgo,'' Ed. A. Chêne (Mónaco, 1913). * (with Leo Frobenius) ''Hadschra Maktuba. Urzeitliche Felsbilder Kleinafrikas.'' Part 1 (of 6). (Kurt Wolff Pantheon-Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft Florenz, Pantheon und München, 1925). * (with Carl Walter Heiss) ''Iberische Prunk-Keramik vom Elche-Archena-Typus.'' (1929) * (with Herbert Kühn), ''Buschmannkunst. Felsmalereien aus Südafrika.'' Edited from the researches of Reinhard Maak. (Kurt Wolff Pantheon-Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft Florenz, Pantheon und München, 1930). * (with Joseph Bernhart) ''Sinn der Geschichte. Eine Geschichtstheologie.'' (Herder, Freiburg i. Br. 1931). * (with

) ''The Cave of Altamira at Santillana del Mar, Spain'' (Madrid, 1935). * ''El Hombre fosil.'' (New Edition) (Colegio Universitario de Ediciones Istmo Madrid, 1985).

Notes

External links

* Larger biography (Principal source for this article)

* The Hugo Obermaier Society, Home Page (in English

* Literature of and about Hugo Obermaier in the Catalogue of the National Library of German

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obermaier, Hugo 1877 births 1946 deaths Writers from Regensburg 20th-century German historians category:German prehistorians Spanish prehistorians 20th-century German anthropologists Archaeologists from Bavaria German Hispanists Catholic clergy scientists German male non-fiction writers 20th-century German archaeologists

Career

Hugo Obermaier Society

Selected publications

See also

Notes

External links