Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet

Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet [ mɔrtijɛ ] ( born August 29, 1821 in Meylan near Grenoble, † September 25, 1898 in Saint- Germain -en- Laye ) was a major French prehistory researchers. He is considered one of the founders of Paleolithic research as a scientific subject. Significantly his system was the relative chronology of the Paleolithic based on stratigraphic observations.

Life

Mortillet came from a royalist family and was educated by Jesuits. He studied engineering and later geology and paleontology. As a convinced atheist and a Republican, he participated in the Revolution of February 1848. He was exiled in 1849 under the presidency of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and retired to Switzerland and Italy, where he dug up in 1863, the first Italian Neolithic Square in Isolino. In 1863 the exile was lifted, Mortillet returned to France and established the first French magazine prehistoric, Matériaux pour l' histoire positive et Philosophique de l' homme. In 1867 he was appointed director of the Museum of Antiquities National ( in Saint- Germain -en- Laye ) in Paris, and finally in 1878 anthropology professor at the École d'.

Its main contribution is the classification and nomenclature of the major periods of the Palaeolithic. This was the first time at the opening of the Museum of Antiquities National presented to the public in 1867 and published two years later. In it, he divided the Stone Age into 14 (later 9) age. The name derives from type localities are known, some of which are still used today:

  • Mousterian ( term introduced in 1869, after the discovery Place Le Moustier, Édouard Lartet since 1860 unearthed )
  • Acheulian (1869, Saint- Acheul at Amiens )
  • Aurignacian (1872, later omitted and only in 1906 introduced by Henri Breuil again)
  • Solutrean (1869, after Solutré ( Saône -et- Loire), by Henry Testot -Ferry since 1866 unearthed )
  • Magdalenian (1869, discovered by La Madeleine, by Édouard Lartet 1863)
  • Tourassien (1872, La Tour aces, no longer used, corresponds to the Azilian ).

His main work is Le Préhistorique, antiquité de l' homme, which was published in 1892 and illustrated by his son Adrien de Mortillet.

In 1905 it was set in the Latin Quarter in Paris, a monument that was created by the artist A. Le Penne.

His extensive, existing from sticky notes, Fund notes and letters, as well as reprints own and other publications estate was purchased in the 1950s by the University of the Saarland. It is kept at the Saarland University and State Library ( SULB ) and the Institute of Prehistory and Early History, and Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Saarland.

Works (selection)

  • Géologie minéralogie et de la Savoie. In: Ann. Chambre Royale Agric. Comm. , 4, VIII Imp Nationale, Chambéry 1858
  • Notice sur l' origine du langage. In: Congrès International d'Anthropologie et de Archaeology, 4, 1869, pp. 285-286.
  • Essai d'une classification of cavernes et des sous abri stations, fondée sur les produits de l'industrie humaine. In: Matériaux pour l' histoire de l' Homme, Volume V, 1869
  • Le Préhistorique antiquité de l' homme. C. Reinwald, Paris 1883
  • La formation de la Nation Française. Bibliothèque scientifique international, Volume 86 F. Alcan, Paris 1897
Saint-Germain-en-Laye Atheism French Revolution of 1848 Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye Abri de la Madeleine Latin Quarter, Paris Integrated Authority File
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