À propos de Gabriel de Mortillet
Colloque international
25-26 nov. 2021 Paris, Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France)

Session topics

First day -  November 25, 2021

Session 1. Thinking and doing anthropology and prehistoric archaeology in the 19th century

A fervent anticleric and very close to the socialist movement, the young Mortillet pursued extremely active and diversified political actions (pamphlets, participation in the events of 1848) in parallel with his studies (CNAM, École des Mines, Museum). His commitment also brought him closer to other political and scientific personalities, whose roles need to be clarified. From 1864 onwards, a more scientific Mortillet seemed to impose itself, but youthful commitments were never fully supressed.

Beyond Mortillet's personality, the second half of the 19th century was a pivotal period in many respects. It is therefore essential to understand the role of the influences exerted by the philosophical, scientific, political and social environment in the intellectual shaping of generations of anthropologists and prehistorians. It is also the moment when an international prehistoric community begins to take shape.

For this session, we are looking for papers on the following topics:

  • - The impact and varied interpretations of the evolutionary perspective in the context of the birth of the human sciences
  • - Taking into account an anthropology of modern and fossil man, from biological (race) to cultural (comparative).
  • - The socio-political dimension of the context in which future scientists and scholars, and in particular Mortillet and his colleagues, had been formed and evolved (press, political/activist implications, public discourses, cartoons...).
  • - Entry of the scientific dimension into the field of politics (solidarity, elective mandate, political regime, political project)
  • - The academic framework and debates at the time of the birth of the discipline (Grandes Ecoles, universities, learned societies, specialised journals...)
  • The emergence of a community structured around anthropology, the construction of specific networks developed under various scientific, philosophical and political auspices.

- The influence of the Mortillet model on local archaeology in continental Europe and the British Isles

Second day - November 26, 2021

Session 2. Field archives and documentary archives: a cross- and multi-disciplinary viewpoint

In order to revive the ‘human’ aspect of scientific research, this section of the conference is dedicated to archives sensu lato:

  • - The entry of anthropology and prehistory into the museum, archaeological continuity or museological disjuncture?
  • - The formation of archaeological collections and casts
  • - Personal and institutional correspondence, administrative archives, marginalia and dedications of works, museum inventories, graphic documents, travel and excavation notebooks and diaries.
  • - Towards the professionalization of the discipline: excavation methodology and cataloguing of discoveries - sites and/or artefacts; chrono-typology.

Session 3. Practices and collections

The emergence of the prehistoric sciences as a practice and a new reflexive system is thus the fruit of an international confrontation where, as in Italy, the demand for scientific legitimation is still sometimes combined with political emancipation. It will then be necessary to examine the shifts and transformations of the disciplinary fields involved in these processes and the implementation of the concepts.

Scientific internationalism finally took shape and found its main tools of expression and public recognition in the creation in Paris of the ‘Materials for a Constructive History of Man’ (1864) and, above all, in the first International Congress of Palaeoethnology (1866) in Neuchâtel, following a first international meeting in La Spezia (1865), conceived and implemented by Mortillet and his colleagues. As places of exchange, convergence and sociability, international congresses played a key role in empowering and legitimising this new scientific community. Together with museums, they constitute the first institutional frameworks within which the discipline would be forged and then deployed. Beyond the congresses themselves and their formality, there is a whole international dynamic that needs to be investigated in its forms, its networks and its scientific and other sources:

  • - Scientific trips across borders (study missions, excavations, acquisitions, etc.)
  • - Scholarly networks
  • - Circulation of people, ideas and collections

 

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