Page 217 - Kavur, Boris. Devet esejev o (skoraj) človeški podobi. Založba Univerze na Primorskem, Koper 2014.
P. 217
summary
monstrous races of man, vanished. Nascent Renaissance spirit created a who-
le pleads of sciences – a period of scientific research on human races and most
similar apes started. Antiquarianism was born at same time with the anew di-
scovery of Antiquity – it formed its subject of research with the transmission
of the idea of wildness in to the New world and in the collective past of Eu-
ropean culture.
In the history of representations of European culture two events played
a major role in the determination of collective and individual relations. Di-
scovery of Savages in the New world and the discovery of pre-roman antiqui-
ties - discoveries of different contemporary and different ancient people. The-
se two elements caused a change of concepts about the identity and origins of
mankind. In the moment of expansion of geographic understanding of the
world we have witnessed due to the need to clarify the cultural diversity of
mankind the creation of new scientific disciplines – anthropology and eth-
nography. In the temporary dimension due to the need to interpret the past,
history changed and archaeology was established. Intellectual agitation of en-
lightenment changed the conception of time and chronology became con-
nected with the idea of human adaptation, development and changes (Davies
2001, 59). Concepts of degenerations and progress pushed very early they way
through into the vocabulary connected with the new understanding of the
Genesis. Reports on radically different ways of life of newly discovered people
offered a possibility to ruminate about the past as a different time being. New
ethnographic meaning was added to the concepts of savagery and barbarism,
known from Greek tradition.
Information about novelties and miracles were presented mostly by itin-
eraries of the late 16th century which did not feature only personal discoveries
of the authors, but were in a broader context the evidence of global discoveries.
They represented the beginnings of modern ethnography, anthropology and
the development of prehistoric anthropology. But at the same time they should
be observed as arguments of numerous governments for justification of coloni-
al subjugations. Still social mobility was not caused only by large projects of co-
lonial occupations but also by the printing revolution, new monetary economy
and population increase with the following urbanization. It was a time when
colonialism was in full swing. It enabled global contacts and the invention of
the printing press enabled the spread of book production. Their union caused
an explosion of fiction in works of prose (Campbell 2004, 26, 27).
In an anthropological sense we were witnesses of changes in the concep-
tion of savages which made feasible the development of scientific archaeolo-
gical and anthropological method. Primitivism, idealizing almost every soci-
217
monstrous races of man, vanished. Nascent Renaissance spirit created a who-
le pleads of sciences – a period of scientific research on human races and most
similar apes started. Antiquarianism was born at same time with the anew di-
scovery of Antiquity – it formed its subject of research with the transmission
of the idea of wildness in to the New world and in the collective past of Eu-
ropean culture.
In the history of representations of European culture two events played
a major role in the determination of collective and individual relations. Di-
scovery of Savages in the New world and the discovery of pre-roman antiqui-
ties - discoveries of different contemporary and different ancient people. The-
se two elements caused a change of concepts about the identity and origins of
mankind. In the moment of expansion of geographic understanding of the
world we have witnessed due to the need to clarify the cultural diversity of
mankind the creation of new scientific disciplines – anthropology and eth-
nography. In the temporary dimension due to the need to interpret the past,
history changed and archaeology was established. Intellectual agitation of en-
lightenment changed the conception of time and chronology became con-
nected with the idea of human adaptation, development and changes (Davies
2001, 59). Concepts of degenerations and progress pushed very early they way
through into the vocabulary connected with the new understanding of the
Genesis. Reports on radically different ways of life of newly discovered people
offered a possibility to ruminate about the past as a different time being. New
ethnographic meaning was added to the concepts of savagery and barbarism,
known from Greek tradition.
Information about novelties and miracles were presented mostly by itin-
eraries of the late 16th century which did not feature only personal discoveries
of the authors, but were in a broader context the evidence of global discoveries.
They represented the beginnings of modern ethnography, anthropology and
the development of prehistoric anthropology. But at the same time they should
be observed as arguments of numerous governments for justification of coloni-
al subjugations. Still social mobility was not caused only by large projects of co-
lonial occupations but also by the printing revolution, new monetary economy
and population increase with the following urbanization. It was a time when
colonialism was in full swing. It enabled global contacts and the invention of
the printing press enabled the spread of book production. Their union caused
an explosion of fiction in works of prose (Campbell 2004, 26, 27).
In an anthropological sense we were witnesses of changes in the concep-
tion of savages which made feasible the development of scientific archaeolo-
gical and anthropological method. Primitivism, idealizing almost every soci-
217
