History of the Collection of Physical Anthropology in the Natural ...

Bull. Soc. Suisse d’Anthrop. 8(1), 41-53.
turer in Anthropology at the University of Basel (Seminar für Ur- und Frühgeschichte). His
assistant was Marianne Lörcher.
Our special library comprises over 500 catalogued books (by authors only), more than 500
catalogued reprints, and catalogued series of eight journals. Further components, yet uncatalogued,
are: A complete documentation of the excavation of the Hospital Cemetery St. Johann;
the library and collection of manuscripts and slides from the estate of Roland Bay, already
mentioned; and a series of books, journals and reprints left on loan by Hansueli F. Etter.
Research
According to Bay and Kaufmann (1980), these activities then centred on four themes: Races,
palaeoanthropology, historical anthropology, and palaeopathology. The first of these stems
from Paul and Fritz Sarasin’s pioneering work. The research on pigmies was gradually expanded
to comprise other groups, notably the Bushmen of South Africa. Along the same lines,
work on material from the Indo-West-Pacific Region still seeks cooperation with the Völkerkundemuseum.
Palaeoanthropology, set off with the study of the Weddas, was revived after the Sarasins by
Bruno Kaufmann (1973). Since 1970, new lines of research in palaeoanthropology have ensued,
with field work in Morocco, South Africa, Portugal (mesolithic sites), and the surroundings
of Basel (in cooperation with the Seminar für Ur- und Frühgeschichte).
Efforts in historical and prehistoric anthropology have centred on the local and regional history
of Basel, and so far yielded an accurate picture of the succession and distribution of types
from the late La Tène period (Celts) to the Galloromans, the Alamannic and Franconians of
the early medieval period, the populace of late medieval times to the present. The accent is on
medieval anthropology.
In palaeopathology, an area of research was the one of defects in jaws and teeth (R. Bay and
his students in cooperation with the Institute of Dentistry of the University; Kuhn 1973,
Thuerkauf 1973, Blum 1976, Büel 1976, Harsch 1976, Stern 1976, Crellmann 1977, Furtwängler
1978, Moor 1978, Gobalet, 1979, Raemy 1979). Such investigations comprised pathology
of the jaws, dental caries, paradentosis, anomalies in jaws and teeth, and injuries
found in various people having inhabited Switzerland during the past 2000 years. The research
by S. Scheidegger dealt with palaeopathological examinations of historical and prehistorical
skeletons of Switzerland, as well as with the palaeohistological study of naturally or
artificially preserved medieval corpses. He was particularly interested in the symptoms of
arthritis, syphilis and cancer (Scheidegger, 1980, 1982a, 1982b). Scheidegger and Kaufmann
were responsible for the successful exhibition Diagnose am Skelett, 1984, in our museum.
The guidebook prepared for this exhibition (Kaufmann, Scheidegger and Schoch, 1984), besides
palaeopathology, also displays other aspects of research based on our collection. Further
exhibitions were carried out by Bruno Kaufmann, for example: 1975 Kleinwüchsige Völker
(Kaufmann 1974), 1977 Buschmänner (in cooperation with the South African Museum Cap
Town; N.N. 1976), 1979 Freiburger Gräberfelder (in cooperation with the cantonal service
of Archaeology in Freiburg/Fribourg; Schwab et al. 1978), 1981 Leibersheim und Gumefens –
Leben und Sterben im Spätmittelalter (in cooperation with the Historical Museum Mülhausen
(F) and the cantonal service of Archaeology in Freiburg/Fribourg; Kaufmann et al. 1981),
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