HUMAN EVOLUTION Vol. 7 - N.

1 (55-65)- 1992

B. Chiarelli The development of Physical Anthropology

Institute of Anthropology
University of Florence,
Via del Proconsolo 12,
50123 Firenze
Italy
and Human evolutionary studies in Western
Europe since World War H and after.
Aim of the present paper is to trace a short excursus on the recent
history of anthropological thought in western Europe in the last half
century. The most important anthropological studies, researches and
discussions developed by different schools, and their contributions
to the progress of anthropology, are reported. A classification of
disciplines related to anthropology is proposed.

At present in Western Europe the term Anthropology covers the complex of studies con-
nected with the origin and the physical and socio-cultural evolution of Man as a zoological
species. Other disciplines deal with certain aspects of humans, but none of them specifically
studies the position of our species in Nature, its origins, its collocation among the mammals, the
relationship between our species and other living forms, and with the outer environment which
was deeply transformed especially during the industrial revolution of the last two centuries.
Anatomy describes the detailed structure of our body, physiology studies its functionality,
pathology investigates the abnormal processes, psychology deals with the elaborative properties
of our brain, and history deals with the product of human culture. But none of these sciences deals
with our species in a specifically naturalistic way.
To clarify the position of the anthropological sciences in the second half of the 19th century,
it is worth citing Paolo Mantegazza's writings (1831-1910). In his "Notebooks on Human Na-
ture" pp. 17-18 (1871), he defines anthropology as a "rich science with a bold future.., which does
not claim anything but to study man with the same experimental criteria with which we study
plants, animals and stones.., it (anthropology) aims at nothing else but to measure and weigh man
and his strength, without the game of religious traditions and the preconceived philosophical
theories... With no pride and no fears". And again, anthropology aims at "analyzing Man, by
defining and measuring his strength, his physical and moral needs in the different races. Then, for
each race, Anthropology traces its natural history and attempts to outline the border of human
perfectibility. This is what this Science aims at",
Mantegazza reserved to himself the task of finding the "measure of many sensorial and
mental capacities which until now were thought unmeasurable". Science, he thought, would also
be able to extract "the mathematical laws of beauty" which would place an average art and an
average beauty within anybody's reach.
Although in later writings (beginning in 1900) Mantegazza rejected and bitterly criticized
the excess of geometrication, this bias remained the prevailing concept of many scholars in the
second half of the 1800s. Unfortunately, it also negatively influenced many anthropologists in the
first half of this century.
In the second half of the 19th century, anthropologists in continental Europe lost sight of the
variability and plasticity of morphological, physiological and psychic characters. The problem of
56 CttIARELLI

the discontinuity of these characters was also put aside in the entirely rationalistic attempt to
quantify differences. The aim was to quantitatively characterize the differences between separate
populations and also between individuals.Thus, its hidden purpose was to measure, classify and
differentiate man's most characteristic feature, his intelligence, and along with intelligence, his
intellectual capacities in general, including even his behavior.

Research on the Hereditary basis of Characters

The concept illustrated above explains the anthropologists' interest for the subject in the
second half of the last century. It also explains their interest in cranial indexes, for so-called
"criminal anthropology", and for constitutionalistic sciences. The study of the principles of hered-
ity was almost totally disregarded, despite the fact that progress was being made in the study of
genetics at that very time. It is enough to mention Gregor Mendel, Francis Galton and Karl
Landsteiner (Chiarelli 1984 and 1985; Landucci 1977).
Anthropology's metricalizing trend, on the other hand found powerful inspiration in one of
Darwin's contemporaries - his cousin, Francis Galton. Born in 1822 on the 16th of February,
Galton became a committed scholar: he transformed the study of both anthropometry and eugen-
ics into sciences, and initiated research into the family inheritance of genius and the study of
twins, laying the foundation of modem statistical methods in the process. His research brought
him to fomaulate the principle of equal participation of both parents in heredity, which he demon-
sta'ated with statistical methods. To him we owe the so-called principles of filial regression (1866)
and ancestral heredity (1869). The first of the principles stated that children resemble their parents
and that they tend to diverge from the group average in the same direction as their parents but
with less intensity, tending to approximate the average. The second principle, of ancestral hered-
ity, interprets the first by attributing regression to the influence of even more distant ancestors. In
other words, the principle of ancestral heredity maintained that two parents on average contrib-
uted half of the heredity given to their children, but that the grandparents contributed one fourth of
the total, the greatgrandparents one eighth and so on.
Pearson, Galton's disciple, tried in vain to give Galton's theories a more general value, but
the rediscovery of Mendel's laws in the first years of the 20th century demonstrated its inconsi-
stency. It has been said of Galton that if he had known Mendel's work, he would have understood
its implications immediately. If that had been the case, he would have anticipated by 30 or 50
years the progress of human biology and of modem anthropology. But there is no evidence that
Galton ever had Mendel's work in hand. Anthropological research into character heredity contin-
ued to be restricted to purely quantitative studies and the general concept of intermediate heredity
for several decades due to two other practical reasons. First of all it was not possible to ex-
periment by cross-breeding individuals of our species. Secondly, many qualitative characters of
Man do not always completely discern and express themselves. For these reasons anthropological
research was long restricted to description and typology.
Studies on character heredity were essentially based on single genealogies. These results
were interesting from an historical point of view, but had scarce conceptual value. Queen Victo-
ria's case is the most representative. The problem of the inheritance of hemophilia and the
genealogy of her descendants showed how a single gene can change history!
Experimentation on our species began with World War I and the necessity for blood transfu-
sions. It was thanks to Landsteiner (1863-1943) that the general lines of anthropological research
changed. Landsteiner was 32 years old when he discovered blood- groups in 1900-1901, Basing
his observations on the type of agglutination noticed when the red cells of certain individuals