NOTES ON THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL MUSEUMS OF
CENTRAL EUROPE '
By GEGORE A. DORSEY
During the months of September and October of last year, I visited the countries of central Europe for the purpose of ex- amining the more important anthropological museums. The object of my visit to these museums was twofold : (i) to study the anthropological collections with a view of ascertaining how far the museums of Europe represent the various fields of an- thropology, and (2) to observe methods of installation, the mounting and preservation of specimens, the material and con- struction of cases, the construction and arrangement of museum buildings, etc.
(1) Within the territory covered, I found no single museum in which the great fields of anthropology are adequately repre- sented : no museum in which man can be studied from the stand- point of somatology, ethnology, archeology, and ethnography. Many of the museums cover two or even three of these subdivi- sions, but very few of them make any pretense of representing f]| more than two. Beginning with the first subdivision of anthro-
pology, namely, somatology, I found no museum which seems to undertake to exhibit man as an animal. In London, in the
- • Department of Natural History of the British Museum, a begin-
h ning has been made to represent the physical features of the
different races of men, but the scheme, as outlined to me by Dr
��;J
��[ Lydecker, provides for the exposition of only a limited series of
skulls together with busts and a few skeletons of the five physical divisions of mankind, each group being provided with a good general descriptive label, and each skull with an individual label.
1 Extracted from a report to the Director of the Field Columbian Museum.
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