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Published on: November 2, 2012
Human tools of the European tertiary? Artefacts, brains and minds in evolutionist reasoning, 1870-1920
1SNSF-Professorship for the History of Science and Science Studies, University of Zurich, 8001 Zurich, Switzerland. msommer@fsw.uzh.ch
Abstract:
This essay explores evolutionary reasoning and notions of progress at the turn of the twentieth century by focusing on the various interpretations used to understand eoliths. These 'dawn' (Greek eos) 'stones' (Greek lithos) were contested objects and I focus on three geographic episodes in which they were used to support scientific, and sometimes socially inspired, accounts of human origins. Particular attention is paid to the work of Gabriel de Mortillet (1821-98), James Reid Moir (1879-1944) and Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935).
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