Robert Hartmann

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Robert Hartmann (October 8, 1832 - 1893) was a German naturalist, anatomist and ethnographer who was a native of Blankenburg am Harz. He studied medicine and science in Berlin, and in 1865 was an instructor of comparative zoology and physiology at the agricultural academy in Proskau. In 1873 he became a professor of anatomy at the University of Berlin. During his career he performed extensive scientific travels throughout Africa and Europe.

In 1859-60 he accompanied Adalbert von Barnim (1841-1860) on a mission to northeastern Africa (Egypt, Sudan and Nubia). Here Hartmann performed ethnographical, zoological and geographical studies in the region. On the journey, Adalbert von Barnim became ill and died on June 12, 1860 at Roseires in the Sudan. He was the son of Adalbert of Prussia (1811-1873). Hartmann wrote about the expedition in a 1863 treatise called Reisen des Freihern von Barnim durch Nordostafrika.

In 1869 he co-founded the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie (Journal of Ethnology) with Adolf Bastian (1826-1905). In the 1870s, Hartmann was vice-president of the Gesellschaft für Erdkunde (Geographical Society) in Berlin and general secretary of the Anthropologischen Gesellschaft (Anthropological Society). He penned numerous articles on eastern Africa, as well as a book on anthropoid apes, where he maintained that humans and apes have a common ancestor.

[edit] Selected publications

Naturgeschichtlich-medical sketch of the Nilländer (Berlin 1865-66)
Die Nigritier (Berlin. 1876, Bd. 1)
Die Völker Afrikas (Leipzig 1880); (The Peoples of Africa) (1880)
Handbuch der Anatomie des Menschen (Handbook of Human Anatomy) (1881)
Der Gorilla (Leipzig 1881)
Die menschenähnlichen Affen (Anthropoid apes) (Leipzig 1883)
Abessinien und die Nilländer (Abyssinia and The Nile Valley) (1883)
Madagaskar und die Inseln Seychellen, Aldabra, Komoren und Maskarenen (Leipzig 1886).