Robert von Heine-Geldern

Robert Freiherr von Heine-Geldern (16 July 1885 - 25 May 1968), known after 1919 as Robert Heine-Geldern, was an Austrian anthropologist, ethnologist, archaeologist and prehistorian who studied in particular the cultures and civilisations of Southeast Asia. He taught as a professor of ethnology and archaeology of India and Southeast Asia at the University of Vienna and, during his emigration from 1938 to 1949, in the United States. Heine-Geldern is considered a pioneer in the field of Southeast Asian Studies.

Biography Heine-Geldern was a grandson of the journalist and author Gustav Heine von Geldern who had been elevated to the hereditary rank of Freiherr (baron) by the Austrian emperor (all noble ranks and titles were abolished in Austria in 1919). The German poet Heinrich Heine was his great-uncle. Robert von Heine Geldern was born in Grub (Wienerwald) and attended school in Vienna which was then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After his Matura diploma in 1903, he studied philosophy and art history first at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, then transferred to the University of Vienna. In 1910, he traveled to the India–Burma border region to study local cultures. Upon his return to Vienna, he switched to ethnology (under Father Wilhelm Schmidt), anthropology and prehistory, completing his doctoral thesis in 1914 on The Mountain Tribes of Northern and Northeastern Burma. Heine-Geldern performed military service during World War I, then worked at the ethnographic department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna (which later became the Museum of Ethnology) from 1917 to 1927. His research combined ethnological, pre-historical and archaeological concepts, and in 1923 pioneered the field of Southeast Asian anthropology with his chapter "Sϋdostasien" in G. Buschan's Illustrierte Völkerkunde. In 1925…Citește mai mult

Selected works "Gibt es eine austroasiatische Rasse?", Archiv für Anthropologie (XLVI), 1921, pp. 79–99. "Südostasien," in G. Buschan (ed.), Illustrierte Völkerkunde, (Stuttgart: Strecker und Schröder, 1923), II, i, pp. 689–968. Altjavanische Bronzen aus dem Besitz der Ethnographischen Sammlung des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien, (Wien: C. W.Stern,1925), Artis Thesaurus I. "Eine Szene aus dem Sutasoma - Jataka auf hinterindischen und indonesischen Schwertgriffen," IPEK, Jahrbuch für Prahistorische und Ethnographische Kunst (1), 1925, pp. 198–238. "Die Steinzeit Südostasiens," Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien (LVII), 1927, pp. 47–54. "Ein Beitrag zur Chronologic des Neolithikums in Südostasien," in W. Koppers (ed.), Publication d'Hommage Offerte au P. W. Schmidt (Wien: Mechithaπsten-Congregations-Buchdruckerei, 1928), pp. 809–843. "Die Megalithen Südostasiens und ihre Bedeutung für die Klärung der Megalithenfrage in Europa und Polynesien," Anthropos (XXIII), 1928, pp. 276–315. "Weltbild und Bauform in Südostasien," Wiener Beiträge zur Kunst und Kultur Asiens (IV), 1928-1929, pp. 28–78. "Urheimat und früheste Wanderungen der Austronesier," Anthropos (XXVII), 1932, pp. 543–619. "Vorgeschichtliche Grundlagen der kolonialindischen Kunst," Wiener Beiträge zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte (VIII), 1934, pp. 5–4θ. "The Archeology and Art of Sumatra," in E. M. Loeb (ed.), Sumatra: Its History and People (Vienna: University of Vienna, 1935), pp. 305–331. "L'art prébouddhique de la Chine et…Citește mai mult