Georg Thilenius

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georg Christian Thilenius (October 4, 1868 - December 28, 1937) was a German physician and anthropologist who was a native of Soden am Taunus. He studied medicine in Bonn and Berlin, and in 1896 was habilitated as an anatomist at the University of Strasbourg. In 1900 he became a professor of anthropology and ethnology at the University of Breslau, and in 1904 became director of the Museum of Ethnography in Hamburg, a position he maintained until 1935.

As director of the Hamburg Museum of Ethnography, Thilenius coordinated the 1908-1910 Südsee-Expedition, which was a scientific expedition to German administered territories in Micronesia and Melanesia. Members of the research group included Friedrich Fülleborn (1866-1933), Otto Reche (1879-1966) and Wilhelm Müller-Wismar (1881-1916). Over 15,000 objects and artifacts from the South Pacific were brought back to Hamburg, as well as scientific data that eventually numbered to 23 volumes.

[edit] Selected writings

Ergebnisse der Südsee-Expedition 1908 - 1910 (Results of the South Seas Expedition 1908 - 1910), Hamburg 1927
Das Hamburgische Museum für Völkerkunde (The Hamburg Museum of Ethnology), Berlin 1916
Die Bedeutung der Meeresströmungen für die Besiedelung Melanesiens (The importance of Ocean Currents for the settlement of Melanesia) Hamburg 1906