Peter Wilhelm Lund: o auge das suas investigações científicas e a razão para o término das suas pesquisas / Peter Wilhelm Lund: the reason for the end the research of one of the most influent scientists of Brazil in the Nineteenth century

AUTOR(ES)

Pedro Ernesto de Luna Filho

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

The Danish naturalist Peter Wilhelm Lund (1801-1880), also called "Brazilian Paleontologys father", was a proponent of the Catastrophism theory formulated by Georges Cuvier. In search of a proof for this theory, Lund excavated thousands of fossils from the caves of Lagoa Santa (MG) between 1835 and 1844, eventually describing dozens of extinct Pleistocene species. Meanwhile, Lund found fossilized skeletons of some 30 human individuals, that became known as the People of Lagoa Santa. Soon after that, Lund sent his collections to Denmark and put an end to his fieldwork. But he never returned to his country, remaining in Brazil until his death. A major question that remains about Lunds life, and the object of this work, is to know why after all he stopped his research? Lunds himself wrote that lack of money was the cause of it. But his biographers choose as scapegoat his physical condition and intellectual tiredness after years of uninterrupted work in the caves. The answer, however, is to be found in Lunds letter collection, archived at the Copenhagen Royal Library. The present work is the result of the study of a small part of this correspondence. By analyzing the naturalists life and his relations to his family, masters and colleagues both in Brazil and Denmark, my hope was to identify the reason for the end the research of one of the most influent scientists of Brazil in the Nineteenth century.

ASSUNTO(S)

archaeology; brazilian prehistory; history of science; human evolution; palaeontology arqueologia; evolução humana; história da ciência; paleontologia; pré-história brasileira

Documentos Relacionados

• Peter Lund: entre o mito e a historia
• Academic scientists and the pharmaceutical industry: cooperative research in twentieth-century America
• "A tissue of the most flagrant anomalies": smallpox vaccination and the centralization of sanitary administration in nineteenth-century London.
• Acessibilidade, Gênero e Educação Superior: Indicativos Procedentes das Investigações Científicas
• Resenha de The Alienist and other stories of nineteenth-century Brazil, de John Chasteen