
Programme

During my last stay in Argentina as part of the SciCoMove project, I had the opportunity to visit the collection of fossil bones that Richard Fariña and his team have collected near Montevideo (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 – Paleontological collection of fossil megafauna, Arroyo del Vizcaíno, Uruguay.
Among the bones discovered at the Pleistocene site of Arroyo del Vizcaíno, some display incisions whose regular patterns puzzle palaeontologists (Fig. 2)
Fig. 2 – Incisions on the rib of a Lestodon (giant fossil sloth).
These bones reminded me of older ones, whose discoveries have punctuated the debates on human antiquity in the 19th Century.
The first of these discoveries occurred in 1863, at a time when European naturalists were discussing new ideas concerning the geological antiquity of man, following the re-examination in 1859 of the sites studied by Jacques Boucher de Perthes near Abbeville in France. On June 8, Jules Desnoyers, a librarian at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris, submitted to the French Academy of Science findings made at Saint-Prest near Chartres (Eure-et-Loire). In strata dated from late Tertiary (Pliocene), he had discovered numerous bones, some of which bore scratches whose shape could not, in his view, be attributed to accidental causes. He concluded that these bones, typical of the late Tertiary fauna, provided proof of the existence of man at geological period predating that of the sites in Abbeville and south-west France. While the age of the terrain was unanimously accepted, the anthropogenic origin of the striations was fiercely debated. Charles Lyell, the famous British geologist whose intervention in support of the antiquity of man had been decisive in 1859, was one of the main challengers of this view. After observing the marks left by the teeth of modern porcupines on bones, he concluded that the incisions were caused by the bites of one of the fossil animals found at Saint-Prest, the Trogontherium Cuvieri, a form of giant beaver. In 1863, the question remained open, and the nature of the marks is still debated, as the review of the Saint-Prest collections carried out a few years ago suggests [Vialet et al. 2021]. At the same time, in May 1863, Abbé Louis Bourgeois discovered other, more convincing remains at Thenay, near Pontlevoy (Loir-et-Cher, France). Some polyhedral flints were found in Tertiary soils, and Bourgeois considered that they had been carved by the human hand. These discoveries were followed by similar ones in Otta, in Portugal’s Tagus Valley, and in Puy-Courny, in the French Massif Central, in the 1870s. This was the start of a long debate on the subject of “Tertiary man”, which most notably took place at the meetings of the International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology organised since 1866.
Numerous views collided in the debate, none of which prevailing. The scientific community was divided between supporters and opponents of the existence of an intelligent being capable of making tools before the Quaternary era; and among the supporters, between those who believed that this intelligent being was similar to present-day man and the proponents of evolutionism, who thought that such a being was a simian ancestor of modern man [Richard 2008]. The debate was refuelled by new discoveries of flints regarded as carved, called “eoliths”, in the UK, Belgium and the Americas [Grayson 1986; de Bont 2003]. It continued until the First World War.
While flints seemed the most convincing evidence, other cut bones were put forward as arguments in favour of the existence of humans or proto-humans during the Tertiary era. In 1867, Abbé Alexis Delaunay discovered some indented bones of Halitherium, a fossil cetacean, in the Miocene shelly sands (faluns) of Chazé-Henry, near Pouancé (Maine-et-Loire) (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3 – Rib fragments of Halitherium with incisions, faluns of Pouancé. In Gabriel & Adrien de Mortillet, Musée préhistorique, 1881, pl. IV.
A few years later, in 1875, the Italian geologist Giovanni Capellini, who was appointed to the first chair of geology in Bologna in 1860, entered the debate with the presentation of cut bones from fossil marine mammals discovered near Montaperti (near Siena, Italy). Capellini went to great lengths to have their significance recognized, as can be seen in the numerous letters preserved in the archives of the Archiginnasio of Bologna. As in the earlier cases, however, the bones elicited contrasting reactions, without succeeding in rallying unanimous agreement. Some of them can now be seen in the display cabinets of the Museo Giovanni Capellini, the geology and paleontology museum founded by Capellini in Bologna (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4 – Shoulder blade of Balaenotus (pliocene fossil cetacean) with marks, discovered near Sienna in 1875 by Giovanni Capellini. @ Museo G. Capellini, Bologna, Italie
The debates over Tertiary man have thus been characterized by ambiguity of evidence and indecisiveness. But they also had positive consequences for archaeology, fostering the closer study of tools and bones presented as evidence. As far as the putative tools were concerned, attention was focused on identifying the features that would indicate that a flint was man-made. Percussion bulbs and flaking marks were described in greater detail, leading to an increasingly sophisticated technological and functional analysis of knapped flints. In contrast, until 1914, cut bones remained more difficult to analyse, and experiments were limited, as Charles Lyell had done, to comparing the marks on fossil bones with those left by the teeth and claws of modern animals on modern bones. Since then, the techniques applied to archaeological research have become much more sophisticated. Maybe the most recent technologies, enhanced by artificial intelligence, will help to settle the question.
References
Bont, Raf De, “The Creation of Prehistoric Man: Aimé Rutot and the Eolith Controversy, 1900–1920.” Isis, vol. 94, no. 4, 2003, p. 604–30.
Grayson, D. K., “Eoliths, Archaeological Ambiguity, and the Generation of ‘Middle Range’ Research”, In D. J. Meltzer, D. D. Fowler, & J. A. Sabloff (Eds.), American Archaeology Past and Future, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986, p. 71-133.
Richard Nathalie, Inventer la préhistoire. Les débuts de l’archéologie préhistorique en France, Paris, Vuibert, 2008, p. 185-195.
Vialet Amélie, Anne-Marie Moigne, Carole Vercoutère, Marie-Helene Moncel, Vanessa Coelho, et al., « Nouvelle étude du site de Saint-Prest : un témoin de la présence humaine en vallée de l’Eure autour d’un million d’années ? » in F. Dugast ed., Formation et gestion des territoires de la Préhistoire à nos jours. Approches et perspectives exploratoires en Normandie et dans la vallée de l’Eure, 2021, p. 99-117.
Durant mon dernier séjour en Argentine dans le cadre du projet SciCoMove, j’ai eu la chance de visiter la collection rassemblée par Richard Fariña et son équipe à proximité de Montevideo (Figure 1).
Figure 1 – Collection paléontologique de mégafaune fossile, site Arroyo del Vizcaíno, Uruguay.
Parmi les ossements découverts sur le site pléistocène Arroyo del Vizcaíno, certains présentent des entailles dont le tracé régulier intrigue les paléontologues (Figure 2).
Figure 2 – Entailles sur une côte de Lestodon (paresseux géant fossile).
Ces ossements m’en ont rappelé de plus anciens, dont les découvertes ont émaillé les débats sur l’antiquité de l’homme au 19e siècle.
La première de ces découvertes date de 1863, alors que les naturalistes européens débattent depuis 1859 des nouvelles hypothèses sur l’ancienneté géologique de l’homme à la faveur, en autres, du réexamen des sites étudiés par Jacques Boucher de Perthes aux environs d’Abbeville en France. Le 8 juin, Jules Desnoyers, bibliothécaire au Muséum national d’histoire naturelle à Paris, présente à l’Académie des sciences française les résultats de découvertes faites à Saint-Prest près de Chartres (Eure-et-Loire). Dans des terrains datés de la fin de l’époque tertiaire (pliocène), il a découvert de nombreux ossements dont certains portent des stries dont la forme ne peut être expliquée, selon lui, par des causes accidentelles. Il en conclut que ces ossements typiques de la fin du tertiaire apportent la preuve de l’existence de l’homme à une époque géologique plus ancienne que celle des sites d’Abbeville et du Sud-Ouest de la France, datés du quaternaire. Si l’âge des terrains fait bien l’unanimité, l’origine anthropique des stries est quant à elle vivement discutée. Charles Lyell, le célèbre géologue britannique dont l’intervention en faveur de l’antiquité de l’homme avait été déterminante en 1859, la conteste. Après avoir observé les traces laissées par des dents de porcs-épics sur des ossements modernes, il conclut que les entailles peuvent être attribuées à l’action d’un des animaux fossiles présent à Saint-Prest, le Trogontherium Cuvieri, une sorte de castor géant. En 1863, la question fut laissée en suspens, et la nature des stries est toujours débattue, comme le suggère la révision des collections de Saint-Prest réalisée il y a quelques années [Vialet et al. 2021]. Au même moment, en mai 1863, d’autres vestiges qui paraissaient plus probants avaient été découverts par l’abbé Louis Bourgeois à Thenay, près de Pontlevoy (Loir-et-Cher). Il s’agit de silex polyédriques, découverts dans les terrains tertiaires, que Bourgeois tient pour taillés de main humaine. Ces découvertes seront suivies d’autres similaires, par exemple à Otta dans la vallée du Tage au Portugal, et à Puy-Courny dans le Massif central en France, dans les années 1870. C’est alors que s’engage un long débat sur « l’homme tertiaire » qui prend place notamment dans les Congrès internationaux d’anthropologie et d’archéologie préhistoriques réunis régulièrement depuis 1866. S’y s’affrontent de multiples positions dont aucune ne réussit à s’imposer : entre les partisans et les adversaires de l’existence d’un être intelligent, capable de fabriquer des outils avant l’ère quaternaire ; et parmi les partisans de cette existence, entre ceux qui pensent que cet être intelligent est similaire à l’homme actuel et les défenseurs de l’évolutionnisme qui estiment que cet être était un ancêtre pithécoïde de l’homme actuel [Richard, 2008]. Le débat se poursuit lorsque de nouveaux silex considérés comme taillés, désormais appelés « éolithes », sont découverts au Royaume-Uni, en Belgique et sur le continent américain [Grayson 1986 ; de Bont 2003]. Il reste vivace jusqu’à la Première Guerre mondiale.
Si les silex paraissent des preuves plus probantes, d’autres ossements entaillés sont avancés comme argument en faveur de l’existence des humains ou proto-humains à l’époque tertiaire. En 1867, l’abbé Alexis Delaunay découvre des ossements entaillés d’Halitherium, un cétacé fossile, dans un terrain daté du miocène, les faluns de Chazé-Henry, près de Pouancé (Maine-et-Loire) (Figure 3).
Fig. 3 Fragments de côtes d’Halitherium avec incisions, faluns de Pouancé. In Gabriel & Adrien de Mortillet, Musée préhistorique, 1881, pl. IV.
Quelques années plus tard, en 1875, le géologue italien Giovanni Capellini, détenteur de la première chaire de géologie à Bologne à partir de 1860, entre dans le débat en présentant des ossements de cétacés fossiles entaillés découverts à proximité de Montaperti (près de Sienne). Capellini ne ménage pas ses efforts pour en faire reconnaître l’importance, comme le démontre l’abondante correspondance conservée dans les archives de l’Archiginnasio de Bologne. Mais comme dans les cas précédents, ces ossements suscitent des réactions contrastées, sans réussir à emporter l’adhésion. Certains sont aujourd’hui visibles dans les vitrines du Museo Giovanni Capellini, le musée de géologie et de paléontologie créé par Capellini à Bologne (Figure 3).
Figure 3 – Omoplate de Balaenotus (cétacés fossile) pliocène portant des stries, découverte par Giovanni Capellini à proximité de Sienne en 1875. @ Museo G. Capellini, Bologna, Italie.
Les débats sur l’homme tertiaire furent ainsi marqués par l’ambiguïté des preuves et l’indécidabilité. Mais ils eurent également des conséquences plus positives pour l’archéologie, en favorisant l’étude plus approfondie des outils et des ossements présentés comme des preuves. Concernant les outils présumés, ils concentrèrent l’attention sur la reconnaissance des marques permettant d’affirmer qu’un silex avait été fabriqué par l’homme. Les bulbes de percussion et les retouches furent décrits avec plus de précision, ouvrant sur une analyse technologique et fonctionnelle de plus en plus fine des outils préhistoriques. Les ossements entaillés en revanche restaient avant 1914 plus difficiles à analyser et les expérimentations se limitèrent le plus souvent, comme l’avait fait Charles Lyell, à comparer les traces observées avec celles laissées par les dents et les griffes des animaux actuels sur des ossements modernes. Depuis les techniques utilisées au service de l’archéologie se sont beaucoup raffinées. Peut-être les technologies les plus récentes, qui mobilisent le concours de l’intelligence artificielle, permettront-elles de trancher la question.
Bibliographie
Bont, Raf De, “The Creation of Prehistoric Man: Aimé Rutot and the Eolith Controversy, 1900–1920.” Isis, vol. 94, no. 4, 2003, p. 604–30.
Grayson, D. K., “Eoliths, Archaeological Ambiguity, and the Generation of ‘Middle Range’ Research”, In D. J. Meltzer, D. D. Fowler, & J. A. Sabloff (Eds.), American Archaeology Past and Future, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986, p. 71-133.
Richard Nathalie, Inventer la préhistoire. Les débuts de l’archéologie préhistorique en France, Paris, Vuibert, 2008, p. 185-195.
Vialet Amélie, Anne-Marie Moigne, Carole Vercoutère, Marie-Helene Moncel, Vanessa Coelho, et al., « Nouvelle étude du site de Saint-Prest : un témoin de la présence humaine en vallée de l’Eure autour d’un million d’années ? » in F. Dugast ed., Formation et gestion des territoires de la Préhistoire à nos jours. Approches et perspectives exploratoires en Normandie et dans la vallée de l’Eure, 2021, p. 99-117.
With chapters from Geraldine Delley, Miruna Achim, Irina Podgorny and Nathalie Richard
Mariano Bonomo and Nathalie Richard will present the result of their research on Florentino Ameghino’s collection of European prehistoric artefacts at the second CHAA.
Web site of the conference: https://segundochaa.com/
Esta ponencia examina la historia detrás de la formación de las colecciones prehistóricas europeas de Florentino Ameghino, hoy depositadas en el Museo de La Plata (FCNyM-UNLP). La colección incluye variados materiales arqueológicos del Paleolítico Inferior, Medio y Superior, así como del Neolítico y la Edad del Bronce, provenientes de Francia y Bélgica. Nuestro objetivo es conocer los mecanismos que utilizó Ameghino para adquirir esta colección europea. La presente investigación se enmarca en el proyecto SciCoMove, financiado por el programa Horizon 2020 de la Unión Europea bajo la acción Marie Skłodowska-Curie (No 101007579).
Florentino Ameghino residió en París de 1878 a 1881, período en el que participó activamente en la Exposición Universal de París de 1878, presentando materiales arqueológicos y paleontológicos de la región pampeana de Argentina. Estos materiales, incluidos en el catálogo especial de la República Argentina de 1878, hoy se encuentran predominantemente en la División Arqueología del Museo de La Plata (MLP). Sin embargo, mientras las colecciones pampeanas han sido ampliamente investigadas, la colección europea ha permanecido en gran medida inexplorada y sin documentación asociada. Para descifrar la procedencia de estos materiales, primero se analizaron las publicaciones y correspondencia científica de Ameghino. Durante su estancia en París, Ameghino contribuyó con cinco publicaciones científicas sobre los yacimientos prehistóricos de Chelles, ubicados en el valle del río Marne, cerca de París. En Chelles se encontraron herramientas líticas bifaciales junto con huesos de fauna extinta. Ameghino aportó significativamente a la geología del sitio, ayudando a caracterizar sus capas industriales y paleontológicas. Según sus publicaciones y correspondencia, adquirió más de 300 objetos de Chelles durante sus trabajos de campo entre 1880 y 1881. Además, estos trabajos que se detallarán en la ponencia, Ameghino planeaba explorar otros importantes sitios paleolíticos en el norte de Francia, como Saint-Acheul y Abbeville, conocidos por proporcionar las primeras evidencias en Francia sobre la alta antigüedad de la humanidad, así como de la coexistencia de los humanos con grandes mamíferos extintos.
Después de su depósito en el MLP en la década de 1880, la colección europea de Ameghino permaneció sin estudiar durante más de setenta años. No fue hasta la década de 1950 que el prehistoriador austriaco Oswald Menghin revisó esta colección, pero no realizó publicaciones salvo por una breve nota de su asistente Horacio Delfor Chiappe. Desde 2006, el personal de la División Arqueología del MLP ha llevado a cabo distintas tareas de conservación y documentación, que continúan hasta hoy. Los objetos europeos registrados actualmente suman más de 1300, abarcando artefactos líticos, huesos, fragmentos de cerámica y moldes de Francia, Bélgica y otras procedencias europeas. La información se ha registrado en una planilla de cálculos estandarizada y se ha digitalizado para facilitar el acceso en línea a través del repositorio digital denominado Culturalis: https://culturalis.mlp.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar/. Las inscripciones y etiquetas en los objetos han proporcionado valiosas pistas sobre los lugares de procedencia. Algunos objetos de la colección fueron obtenidos mediante intercambios, compras y regalos de otros prehistoriadores y coleccionistas. Por ejemplo, algunos objetos formaron parte de las colecciones de Édouard Lartet y Henry Christy, pioneros en los estudios prehistóricos del valle del río Vézère en el departamento de la Dordogne en 1863. La correspondencia científica de Ameghino también menciona intercambios con prehistoriadores famosos como Gabriel de Mortillet, quien le donó varios objetos. En resumen, la colección francesa de Ameghino depositada en el MLP comprende materiales adquiridos a través de diversos medios. Los objetos de los departamentos de la Dordogne, Charente y Côtes-d’Armor fueron obtenidos a través de intercambios, compras y regalos, mientras que los de Chelles en sus propios trabajos en el terreno. Esta circulación e intercambio de materiales arqueológicos entre individuos e instituciones fueron cruciales para la difusión global de la emergente disciplina de la prehistoria durante el siglo XIX.
The history of European prehistory collections in Mexico City is not easy to recount. These specimens were moved several times. They are now mainly kept at the Museo nacional de las culturas del mundo (MNCM). A few pieces are also on display in a showcase at the UNAM’s Museo de geología. At the MNCN, part of these series was displayed in a room dedicated to universal prehistory, which is now closed. They are now stored in the deposit of the museum (Fig. 1).
Figure 1 – European prehistoric tools in the storage area of the National Museum of World Cultures in Mexico City. @Photo by the author.
The journey of these objects towards their current location is full of uncertainties, as the archives are fragmentary. But several clues suggest that the earliest pieces to arrive in Mexico city are linked to the life and work of Georges Engerrand.
Georges Engerrand, anarchism and prehistory.
Born in Libourne in 1877, Georges Engerrand studied natural sciences at Bordeaux University between 1895 and 1898 (Campbell 1962). During these years, he was involved in anarchist circles, published several articles in Les Temps nouveaux and sided for Captain Dreyfus in the events that were causing deep divisions in France at the time. A pacifist and Dreyfus supporter, he refused to do his compulsory military service. Risking imprisonment, he fled to Brussels in 1898, where he joined up with Elisée Reclus, one of the leading figures in the intellectual anarchist circles of the time.
Engerrand stayed in the Belgian capital for almost 10 years, teaching geology and prehistory at several establishments, including the Université nouvelle de Bruxelles or Ecole libre d’enseignement supérieur (1894-1919), an institution founded by socialists and anarchists where Reclus taught (Elmer 2022; Mosquete 2004). During this period, he wrote a thesis in geology and numerous publications, mainly on geology and prehistory (Newcombe 1961). His book Six leçons de préhistoire (Bruxelles, Larcier, 1905), a summary intended for a broad readership, was awarded a prize by the Belgian Academy of Sciences.
A supporter of evolutionism, Engerrand was an advocate of a science-based prehistory, founded primarily on the geological (stratigraphic) study of the sites. He associated the development of this discipline with the drive to emancipate humanity through science, in essays marked by a rationalist conception that he shared with many anarchist intellectuals. The Spanish translation of his 1905 book, Nociones de la primeras edades de la humanidad (Barcelona, Publicaciones de la escuela moderna, 1905), was prefaced by E. Reclus.
During his time in Brussels, Engerrand became friends with the Belgian prehistorian Aimé Rutot (1847-1933). He endorsed his hypotheses about the existence of a very ancient human being whose crude tools, known as eoliths, would be found in geological layers dating from the Tertiary period, older than the Lower Palaeolithic (De Bont 2003).
Engerrand and the first course in global prehistory in Mexico.
The reasons for G. Engerrand’s decision to move to Mexico are not precisely known, but it is possible that he viewed this country as a new opportunity for his career and for the advancement of the international anarchist rationalist project (Graham 1961, Rutsch 2010). He arrived in 1907 to join the Instituto Geológico Nacional as a geologist, and became chief geologist of the “tertiary-quaternary” section, a position he held until 1915. In this capacity, he undertook numerous field trips, during which he also made archaeological discoveries. In 1909, for example, he found at Concepción, in the state of Campeche, a lithic industry without ceramics, the shape of which was reminiscent of the oldest knapped flints found in Europe (Engerrand & Urbina 1909). This typological comparison led him to postulate the existence of an early prehistory in Mexico, but the lack of a geological context for the Concepción discovery made him extremely cautious in his conclusions.
In 1909-1910, Engerrand was appointed professor of prehistory at the Museo Nacional (now the Museo Nacional de Antropología, named Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Historia y Etnologia in 1910), a position he held alongside his work at the Instituto de Geología until 1914. In this capacity, he gave lectures on global prehistory, placing Mexican pre-Hispanic archaeology in a broader chronological framework and in a global geographical context, while promoting the stratigraphic method. A general outline of the course kept in the archives set out a 4-year programme, with three hours per week from 1909 onwards (Archivo histórico del Museo nacional de Antropología, vol. 289, 11707 DIRcur). The first year was a general introduction to geology and its links with prehistory, outlining the history of the discipline, discussing the uses of ethnographic comparison, presenting known paleoanthropological data and the biological theories about human origins, and ending with a guide to field work. The second year focused on Tertiary and Quaternary lithic industries in Europe. One section was devoted to eoliths, using a vocabulary forged by Rutot. The third year covered the art, fauna, flora and human races of the European Quaternary era. It included a section entitled “An attempt to reconstruct the life and mentality of prehistoric man in the light of known facts”, and then focused on the Neolithic period. The fourth year dealt with the transition from prehistory to history and with extra-European prehistory, with a special focus on the American continent. The debates going on in the United-States over the existence of an American Palaeolithic were discussed, as well as the research carried out in Brazil and Argentina on the same topic. The question of the transition from prehistory to pre-Hispanic cultures concluded the course.
Engerrand was also involved in the work of the Escuela Internacional de Arqueología y Etnología Americanas, which operated in Mexico from 1910 to 1917 and in which Franz Boas played a central coordinating role (Ruiz 2003, Rutsch 2010, Taladoire 2022). Engerrand became its director in 1912-1913 and, along with others, promoted stratigraphic methods in order to establish a more precise chronological sequence for Mexican sites. The political instability of the period of the Mexican Revolution, his designation as a foreigner (although he had obtained Mexican nationality and changed his French first name “Georges” to Hispanic “Jorge”), and some interpersonal conflicts forced him to leave Mexico for the United States in 1917. He ended his career there as a professor at the University of Texas.
History of collections
The history of the European prehistoric collections in the public institutions of Mexico City is linked to the first course in global prehistory given by Engerrand. However, the archives and collections that have been found to date are incomplete, and we have clues rather than evidence on this subject.
Nevertheless, the historical archives of the National Anthropology Museum show that the matter of setting up a collection to complement Engerrand’s course was raised as early as November 1909. To this effect, the museum’s director wrote to the Secretary of Public Education asking for a collection of “general prehistory” to be purchased from a specialized dealer in Belgium, the Comptoir ethnographique de Bruxelles. The collection consisted of 730 items “que le Profesor de Prehistoria de este Museo […] juzga non solo única, por su importancia y rareza, sino indispensable para la enseñanza de su clase, que carece en absoluto de arsenal prehistórico”. The museum was notified of the Ministry’s approval a few days later (Archivo histórico del Museo nacional de Antropología, vol. 267, 10495). But the archives remain silent on the follow-up to the transaction.
However, the objects that I was able to see or that feature in the MNCM’s inventories bear significant indications. They suggest that pieces arrived from Belgium in relation to Engerrand’s teachings and ideas and strongly point at the Brussels Comptoir ethnographique as the provider.
Many of these objects come from sites that were emblematic of the research carried out by Belgian prehistorians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as the Trou de Chaleux, Spiennes, Boncelles and Mesvin. However, unlike sites such as La Madeleine or Solutré in France, these Belgian sites were not subsequently considered to have played a key role in the development of the discipline. Several, such as Boncelles, present a questionable stratigraphy.
In addition to the name of the site, these objects bear an indication referring to industries whose names were coined by Belgian prehistorians and adopted by Aimé Rutot (Fig. 2). In the Spanish translation of his 1905 work, Nociones de la primeras edades de la humanidad, Engerrand endorsed this vocabulary (more clearly than in the French version, since these names were not accepted in France). He adopted the divisions proposed by his friend Rutot to designate certain ancient prehistoric cultures, based on the names of Belgian sites, for example “Mesvinian” (Mesvin site) or “Strepyen” (Strepy site) (Fig. 3).
Figure 2 – Flint tool marked “Bergerac, Strepyen”, MNCM @photo by the author.
These names associated with Rutot were also used in the outline of the prehistory course given in Mexico City. Coined by Belgian prehistorians, they were not adopted by the majority of the international scientific community. Most of them were abandoned between the two world wars.
Figure 3 – Table of prehistoric industries according to Rutot, reproduced in Engerrand’s Nociones de la primeras edades de la humanidad (1905).
Moreover, the content of the remaining series at the MNCN reveals that 53% of the stone tools came from Belgian sites, and more than 80% from sites listed in the catalogue of the Comptoir ethnographique de Belgique for 1909 (Fig. 4). This specialized shop was owned by Louis Exsteens, a dealer in Brussels who was close to the prehistorian Aimé Rutot and sold series organized according to his classification.
Figure 4 – Collections on sale at the Comptoir ethnographique de Bruxelles in 1909.
Conclusion
Although it leaves a number of questions unanswered, this paper shows that the Nacional Museum of Mexico bought a collection of European prehistoric artefacts in 1909 from a specialized dealer, in order to complete its collections and provide specimens in relation to the creation of a new course on prehistory. This story is emblematic of the reasons that may have fostered the circulation of prehistoric series from Europe to Latin America before the First World War. It underlines the importance of a flow of archaeological objects that is the reverse of the one most often studied by historians of science and collections.
These objects arriving in the Mexican collections testify of the European conception of prehistory as a global phenomenon, whose traces were likely to be discovered all over the world under similar typological forms. In the Americas, such traces had been discovered at an early stage in the United States, where they fuelled heated controversy over their dating, and in Argentina, where the ideas of Fiorentino Ameghino were debated (Meltzer 1983, Podgorny 2015). In Mexico, the assumption of the existence of lithic industries that predated ceramic cultures emerged more strongly at the beginning of the 20th century. In this context, the creation of reference collections, allowing for typological comparisons between American and European objects, was a crucial issue, as shown by the example of Georges Engerrand.
Bibliography
CAMPBELL T. N., « George Charles Marius Engerrand 1877-1961 », American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 64, No. 5, Part 1 (Oct., 1962), pp. 1052-1056.
DE BONT Raf, « The Creation of Prehistoric Man: Aimé Rutot and the Eolith Controversy, 1900–1920 », Isis, vol. 94(4), 2003, p. 604-630.
ELMER Margot, « Construire l’internationalisme. Communication, adaptation et réseaux des étudiants étrangers de l’Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles (1894-1914) », Revue du Nord, 2022/1-2 (n° 442-443), p. 169-195.
ENGERRAND Jorge, & Fernando URBINA, “Nota preliminar acerca de un yacimiento prehistorico ubicado en Concepción(estado de Campeche) acompañada de un resumen frances”, Boletín de La Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, vol. 6, no. 1, 1909, p. 79–87.
GRAHAM John H., “George C. Engerrand in Mexico, 1907-1917”, Bulletin of the Texas Archaeological Society, 1961, Vol. 32, p. 19-31
MELTZER, David J., “The Antiquity of Man and the Development of American Archaeology.” Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, 6, 1983, p. 1–51
MOSQUETE Teresa Vicente, “Geografía y ciencia en la Universidad Nueva de Bruselas: 1894-1919”, Historia de las ciencias y de las técnicas, coord. por Luis Español González et al., vol. 2, 2004, p. 937-957.
NEWCOMBE W. W. Jr, “George C. Engerrand in Europe, 1898-1907”, Bulletin of the Texas Archaeological Society, 1961, Vol. 32, p. 9-17.
PODGORNY Irina, “Human Origins in the New World? Florentino Ameghino and the Emergence of Prehistoric Archaeology in the Americas (1875–1912)”, PaleoAmerica: A Journal of Early Human Migration and Dispersal, 1, 2015, p. 68–80.
RUIZ Carmen, Insiders and Outsiders in Mexican Archaeology (1890-1920). Tesis doctoral en filosofía. Texas University, Austin, 2003.
RUTSCH Mechthild, “”Vivir de una vida nueva”. Jorge Engerrand (1877-1961), entre la antropología mexicana y la estadounidense de principios del siglo XX”, Nueva Antropología. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, n° 73, 2010, p. 147-169.
TALADOIRE Eric, “George Charles Marius Engerrand (1877-1961) y la Escuela Internacional de México”, Arqueología, (61), p. 165–183.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the teams at the Museo Nacional de las Culturas del Mundo and the Museo de Geología de la UNAM for their support and assistance with this research.
Irina Podgorny, CONICET and Museo de La Plata
Abstract: In this paper I will present the results of my research on the collections of South American fossil mammals that were sold or donated to different European museums in the 1830s and 1840s. Some of these pieces integrate the skeletons that are still exhibited today in London, Berlin or Paris. Others, however, remain in their boxes in the state in which they were sent, revealing the ways in which they were prepared and packaged, an aspect that complements the information provided in the letters written in the context of these transactions.
Nathalie Richard, Le Mans Université, Temos UMR 9016
Abstract: In many collections of prehistoric artefacts around the world, from Mexico City to Buenos Aires, from Paris to Barcelona and Neuchâtel, specimens carry a similar tag. In this communication, I argue that this tag fits well the definition of a “paraobject” put forward by José Beltrán. The “CL” tag is an object which is distinct from the specimen but comes with it. It gives information that is not given by the specimen itself, especially on its history and past moves. Based on research in the collections and archive of different institutions in Latin America and Europe, this paper will first explain what the capital letters “CL” stand for. It will analyse the specific scientific background that justified the travels of specimens carrying such a tag from France to many institutions abroad, as well as the various social and material contexts in which these travels took place. In accordance with one of the main research hypotheses in the EU project SciCoMove, my paper will exemplify that the circulation of scientific specimens was not a one-way process from non-Western “exotic” countries to the Western museums, but that collections also travelled the other way round.