Victorian Anthropologists on the Aboriginal Peoples of Great Britain

• Main Author: Трынкина, Дарья Александровна
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: МГУ имени М.В.Ломоносова (Lomonosov Moscow State University) 2016
• Subjects: Victorian anthropology; social anthropology; Great Britain; Celts; Finns; Sami people; Iberians; Social Darwinism; Monogenism; Polygenism; викторианская антропология; социальная антропология; Великобритания; кельты; саамы; финны; иберы; социал-дарвинизм; моноцентризм; полицентризм; sami; Саамы
• Online Access: http://www.historystudies.msu.ru/ojs2/index.php/ISIS/article/view/72

This article was largely inspired by the late professor Alexei A. Nikishenkov. The topic of this article was proposed by him and without his wisdom and his support this work would never have been written. Victorian anthropologists had particular theories about who the first inhabitants of Britain were, first based on the achievements of comparative philology and then on the results of extensive measurements of excavated skulls and their comparison with the characteristics of contemporary people. There were three main theories on the ethnicity of British natives. The classic theory, supported by a long antiquarian tradition, held that they were Celts. The social Darwinist anthropologists believed them to be Finno-Ugric people, according to the research of contemporary Scandinavian scientists. The Victorian polygenists mostly agreed that the first inhabitants of the British Isles were of Iberian origins, as it was pointed out by the ancient writers. All of these hypotheses were circulated around the same time and depended greatly on the shifting trends of scientific fashion. However, they can be roughly arranged in the following chronological sequence: from the Celts to Northern Turanians (Finno-Ugric people) and then to Southern Turanians (Iberian people). Этот очерк никогда не увидел бы свет без поддержки Алексея Алексеевича Никишенкова. Именно он привил мне любовь к историографии и в свое время предложил заниматься британской антропологией XIX века. Идеи викторианских антропологов об аборигенном населении Британии зависели в первую очередь от имевшихся в распоряжении ученых методов познания бесписьменного периода истории. В начале XIX века большую роль играло сравнительно-историческое языкознание, которое ко второй половине столетия сменило измерение черепов из древних захоронений Британии и сличение их с показателями современных народов. Можно выделить три главных подхода к ответу на вопрос об этнической принадлежности древнейшего населения Британских островов. Классический вариант, которого придерживались ...