TThe last publication of Edinburgh University’s race and history examination drew attention to the “Skull Room :: the collection of 1,500 human craniums provided for education in the 19th century.
Craniometry, which was examined by skull measurements, was widely taught in medical faculties in England, Europe and the United States in the early 19th and 20th centuries.
Today, the harmful and racist foundations of the craniometry have been discredited. It has long been proven that the size and shape of the head has no effect on mental and behavioral characteristics in individuals or groups.
However, in the early 19th and 20th centuries, thousands of skulls were accumulated to provide research and education in scientific racism. Edinburgh’s skull room is not unique in any way.
Unlike the popular theory that connects personality traits to the minds, he had widespread scientific support in the 19th century, as he revolved around craniometry, data collection and statistics.
Craniometrist measured skulls and averaged the results of different population groups. These data were used to classify people into races according to the size and shape of the head. Craniometric evidence was used to explain why some peoples were more civilized and developed than others.
The great accumulation of data from the skulls addressed to Victoria scientists who believed in the objectivity of numbers. He also helped to verify the racial prejudice by arguing that the differences between peoples were innate and biologically determined.
Medical
The examination of the skulls was at the center of the development of 19th century anthropology. However, before teaching anthropology in British universities, the so -called racial difference markers were examined by capable anatomists to determine the minutes differences in the skeletons. The examination of the skulls entered the university curriculum through medical faculties and especially through anatomy departments.
For example, when Alexander Macalister was appointed as anatomy professor in Cambridge in 1884, some of his first lessons were on the “race types of the human skull”.
Macalister’s 1892 -year report at Cambridge University correspondent explains how Cambridge increases Cranial Holdings from 55 to 1,402 examples. In 1899, the archaeologist Flinders Petrie reported more than 1,000 ancient Egyptian kits donation. Most of the Macalister’s skull collection are found in the Duckworth Laboratory of the University, founded in 1945.
As the prestige of craniometric research increased and institutions were launched, they had to compete for cranial collections. The statistical accuracy was dependent on the broad cranium series measured to produce representative “species .. This created an increasing demand for human remains.
In 1880, Royal Surgeons College bought 1,539 skulls from Joseph Barnard Davis’s special collection. This was added to the current 1,018 cranium cache to create the largest craniological collection of the UK. This collection was largely destroyed in 1941 that the college building was bombed during the Second World War. The remaining skulls are no longer held by the Royal Surgeons College.
Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Manchester University Faculty of Medicine (Medical School is no longer on the same site), such as the 19th century anatomical demonstrations included the rows of Crania. This investment in skulls has enabled racial researchers to have enough material to work and use in their teaching.
Catalogs held by universities in the early 19th and 20th centuries reveal not only the size of the skull collections, but also the origin of individual examples.
Historical trauma
Some medical faculties, such as Edinburgh, skulls provided by the bruise societies at the beginning of the century to improve their existence. Others, including Oxford’s, used skulls revealed by archaeologists to conduct racial research on the country’s past. This research tried to monitor the movements of Celts, Normans, Saxons and Scandinavians on the British Islands.
However, because craniologists wanted to capture the entire racial variation, skulls from abroad were awarded especially. Medical graduates of British universities sent to colonies sent foreign bones to their former professors.
For my book on the collections of skull collections, I found that Cambridge contained a skull sent from an old student deployed in India. Despite the anger of the collected mourning, he had severed a creamy area in Bombay. Brazen grave and colonial violence took place in the center of the international network that laid the skull rooms of British universities.
150 years ago, the racist ideology that encouraged the collection of skulls fell completely discredited. However, some anthropologists believe that these bones still shed light on human origins, relationships and migrations.
However, ethical factors now shape institutional policies for human remains equally. The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford exhibited his infamous “shrinkage heads” in 2020.
Increasingly, universities and museums faced historical injustices and inter -generation traumas due to their protection of human remains. Since the 1970s, local groups from around the world have started campaigns to send back the bones of their ancestors. Research institutions have become more and more sensitive to these demands.
In London, the Royal Surgeons College Museum no longer exhibits the Charles Byrne skeleton called “Irish giant”. Byrne clearly rejected consent to disseminate and assemble his remains before he died in 1783.
The skulls in British universities are proof of a great theft of human remains from almost every region in the world. Nevertheless, if their discriminatory backgrounds are accepted and relieved through their return, they have the potential to become strong symbols of compromise.
A spokesperson of the Duckworth University of Cambridge Duckworth said: “We are dealing with the collections of collections in the maintenance of collections, like many institutions in the United Kingdom, and in the past ethical practices.
“This commitment is seen as an integral part of a constant, mutual knowledge, perspective and cultural values. It is marked by recognizing the need for dialogue.
Elise Smith ONE The University of Warwick, Associate Professor in Medical History. This article was re -published without speech under the Creative Commons license. Read Original article.
