The Birth of Physical Anthropology in Late Imperial Portugal
In this article I analyze the emergence of the field of physical anthropology in the metropolitan academic sphere of the Portuguese Empire during the late nineteenth century. I suggest that Portugal’s relatively peripheral position combined with a complex internal conjuncture of political instability and economic impotence gave early Portuguese physical anthropology a less explicitly “colonial” orientation than in other, more central Western European imperial powers. I describe the various national and international exchanges leading to the birth of this naturalist anthropological tradition at the University of Coimbra, drawing particular attention to the foundational role played by the technological assemblage of large osteological collections aimed at the study of the somatic characteristics of the metropolitan “white” population. I situate these technical developments in the context of wider sociocultural and politico-economic processes of both “nation building” and “empire building.” These processes had a strong effect on the kinds of questions asked and the kinds of answers that seemed compelling and acceptable to early physical anthropologists.
Looking back at a decade of science communication in the field of human evolution
In the year of 2015, the Group of Studies in Human evolution (GEEvH) completed ten years of existence. Since its foundation, GEEvH’s has played an important role in the difficult task of communicating science in Portugal in the field of human evolution. In this paper, an overview of the main activities developed by GEEvH in the last decade as well as upcoming goals, will be provided. This approach will be framed by a short theoretical introduction to Charles Darwin’s Assis et al. /Cadernos do GEEvH 4 (1) 2015: 8-24 9 theories, highlighting the impact of evolutionary biology views in the Portuguese academic and schools settings. The current situation with regard to the teaching of human evolution in Portuguese schools will also be presented.
A obra de Euclides da Cunha e os debates sobre mestiçagem no Brasil no início do século xx: Os sertões e a medicina- antropologia do Museu Nacional
The article addresses certain interfaces between Euclides da Cunhas work - particularly Os sertoes - and medicine-anthropology in Brazil in the early 20th century. Cunhas work can be tied in with two lines of thought in the field of medicine-anthropology, each of which constructed its own view of the consequences of Brazils racial make-up, especially regarding the viability of a mestizo nation. One of these lines, supported by Raimundo Nina Rodrigues, among others, leaned more towards racial fatalism. The other, represented by Edgard Roquette-Pinto of the Museu Nacional, argued that mestizos were neither organically nor racially inviable. The text is concerned above all with the interpretation of Cunhas work proposed by those in the field of medicine- anthropology at the Museu Nacional.