Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald
Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald (* November 13, 1902 in Berlin, † July 10, 1982 in Bad Homburg ) was a German - Dutch paleoanthropologist and geologist who has done research in his field after the ancestors of humans.
Life and work
As the son of the anthropologist Gustav A. Koenigswald he grew up in Berlin and studied geology and paleontology at the University of Berlin, Eberhard- Karls- University Tübingen, Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich and the University of Cologne. His teachers have included, among others, Ferdinand Broili, K. Martin and LMR Rutten. He was promoted critical of the Swiss anthropologist Rudolf Martin ( born July 1, 1864 in Zurich - July 11, 1926 in Munich).
In 1928 graduated from Koenigswald with the dissertation " The Rotliegend of Weiden bay " at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University Munich ( LMU). This was followed up in 1930 at a time as an assistant at the Bavarian Geological Bavarian State Collection.
1931 resigned from Koenigswald as paleontologist in the Netherlands Geological Survey in Bandung / Java ( service van Mijnbouw van Nederlands Indië ) ', for which he worked until 1946 then. During this period he carried out excavations at the Solo River, at Sangiran and Modjokerto.
In 1934 he began his studies in Indonesia Central Java in Sangiran, around 15 kilometers north of Surakarta (1996 declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site ). Excavations here are some of the oldest fossils of the genus Homo were discovered outside of Africa, such as the of it for Java man ( Pithecanthropus erectus ) Asked discovery of a skull roof (now Homo erectus assigned ), a fossil with the archive name " Sangiran II". Overall, about 60 more fossils were excavated at this locality, including remnants of Meganthropus.
In 1935, he discovered in a Hong Kong pharmacy three fossil teeth, which he recognized as a previously unknown type and blacki named as Gigantopithecus (Greek píthekos "monkey" ). There followed in 1941 the discovery of the largest jaw of human origin, which led him to suspect that there was prehistoric giants. In 1941 he discovered the remains of Meganthropus palaeojavanicus; also the name Graecopithecus freybergi for a fossil primate species was introduced by him.
During the Second World War came Koenigswald as a Dutch soldier in Japanese captivity.
From 1946 to 1948 he was then at the American Museum of Natural History New York. In 1948 he returned to Europe and took a job as a professor of anthropology and paleontology at the University of Utrecht, where he taught until 1968. In that year moved from Koenigswald to Frankfurt am Main, at the Senckenberg Research Institute to establish the section Paleoanthropology, which he headed until his death in 1982. On this post Jens Lorenz Franzen followed him, who had been his assistant since 1969. From Koenigswald scientific Senckenberg estate is managed in the Research Institute, part of his palaeontological and cultural collection of fossils and stone tools are exhibited in the Senckenberg Museum.
Honors and Awards
- The first winner of the Werner - Reimers - price
- 1952 Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences
- 1972 Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington
- Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
- Honorary Doctor of Yogyakarta
- Honorary Professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main
Writings (selection )
About 200 publications in professional journals, including in Geological Zentralblatt, Nature, Science, Proceedings of the Kon. Ned. Akad Amsterdam, Quaternary.