Karel Absolon

Karel Absolon ( born June 16, 1877 in Boskovice, † October 6, 1960 in Brno ) was a Czechoslovakian prehistorians, geologist and speleologist.

Life

Karel Absolon is the grandson of the naturalist Jindřich Wankel and son of the doctor Vilibald Absolon. His mother Valeria Absolon, born Minkusziewiczová with which his father was married to his second wife, engaged in paleontological art. In Brno, he attended the grammar school. In Prague he studied zoology and geography.

During his studies at the Charles University, he worked on speleological investigations in the area of the Moravian Karst. In 1907 he qualified as a professor in the fields of Physical Geography and later managed one full year the zoological collections of the Moravian Museum in Brno. In 1926 he was appointed extraordinary, in 1927 a full professor of paleoanthropology and zoogeography of the Charles University in Prague. TO his students included January Jelinek.

Work

His research he conducted in zoology, speleology, karst research, geomorphology, paleontology and archeology. Even after his student days his focus was in the Moravian Karst. This area has been systematically investigated by him and mapped. He examined and made the cave breakthrough stepmother gorge of the population accessible research in the caves Pekárna, Punkevní jeskyně and Kateřinská jeskyně. Together with Bohuslav Klima, he conducted research in areas of Přerov, in which the first prehistoric people settled in Moravia, as well as in Dolni Věstonie, Otaslavice and Ondratice. His findings were housed in Mikulov Castle, where they were destroyed in a fire.

Absolon also explored karst areas in England, France and the Balkans. Overall, he examined over 2000 caves. His oeuvre includes hundreds of articles in scientific journals and monographs.

The writer Václav heirs immortalized him in one of his "Captain Exner " novels as Professor Aboldon.