Anthropology (ePub)

Daniel Garrison Brinton (1837-1899) was a prominent American archaeologist and ethnologist, recognized for his extensive work in the field of anthropology. Trained as a physician, Brinton served as a surgeon during the Civil War, but his interests shifted as he delved into the study of human cultures and languages. After the war, he actively pursued a career in anthropology, which was then an emerging field. Brinton's scholarly contributions are evident in his works, including the influential 'Anthropology' published in 1890, where Brinton challenged the racial theories of the time and emphasized cultural processes in human development. His other notable works include 'The Myths of the New World' (1868), where he systematically compared the mythologies of various indigenous cultures of the Americas, and 'The American Race' (1891), in which he argued for a singular origin of indigenous American peoples, a hypothesis debated among his contemporaries. Brinton's academic endeavors were recognized through his appointment as Professor of American Archaeology and Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, and his leadership as president of various learned societies. His literary style often involved a thorough and comparative analysis of linguistic and cultural data, pioneering methods that would later be foundational to modern anthropology. Despite some of his theories being contested or deemed outdated by later scholars, Brinton's impact on the establishment of anthropology as a scientific discipline is significant.