Page 221 - Kavur, Boris. Devet esejev o (skoraj) človeški podobi. Založba Univerze na Primorskem, Koper 2014.
P. 221
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tellectual contexts. Science of prehistory was actually an intersection of di-
fferent complementary, but sometimes also antagonistic academic traditions
(Coye 2005, 702).
Actually we should link the beginning of systematic research of history
of mankind and different human races with the revolution in time. Crucial
was the collapse of the short creationistic chronology and the establishment
of deep time stretching in to an undetermined past (Trautmann 1992, 379-
280). It was a fact that the schemes of social development and rudimentary
propositions of racial divisions were established before but with the disinte-
gration of the biblical chronology they found themselves in a perspective,
lacking the predetermined chronological frame. The chronology of origins,
development, changes and substitutions had to be established anew. The ques-
tion of the chronological position of a phenomenon – in our case the human
being and the variability of his appearance, was put in to the foreground.
With the loss of the divine creator the search for causes for their morpholog-
ical variability started.
In the moment when with the consolidation of evolutionism as the
dominant scientific and social paradigm the conceptual image of the world
changed, the “others” were constituted with a new, scientific method. Hu-
manity gained its complete opposition trapped in to kin relations. Fossi-
le humans were not a race, representing a degenerated form of modern hu-
mans, but a species fighting for survival in a wild world. Their name became
a synonym for their appearance – birth of modern science created the Nean-
derthals.
It was an image identical to the wild man from the Middle ages, image
which became familiar in popular visual culture of the 20th century. It be-
came so natural that we can hardly imagine that our ancestors might have
looked differently. But the modern creators of images ignore their origins,
they ignore its long and with different meanings laden past and present them
just as results of modern science leading the observers in to erroneous convic-
tion that they are looking at the truth and not at just another interpretation
(Berman 1999, 296).
Another element which appeared in the moment when paleoanthropo-
logy was born was the full swing of printing. It enabled an increase in produ-
ction of scientific works and made them easily accessible. At the same time it
caused with the publication of popular science magazines the invasion of sci-
ence in to newspapers. Scientific results became translated in to visual ima-
ges which were accessible and understandable to a broader and less critical au-
dience. Images of Neanderthals were in the moment when the exceeded the
221
tellectual contexts. Science of prehistory was actually an intersection of di-
fferent complementary, but sometimes also antagonistic academic traditions
(Coye 2005, 702).
Actually we should link the beginning of systematic research of history
of mankind and different human races with the revolution in time. Crucial
was the collapse of the short creationistic chronology and the establishment
of deep time stretching in to an undetermined past (Trautmann 1992, 379-
280). It was a fact that the schemes of social development and rudimentary
propositions of racial divisions were established before but with the disinte-
gration of the biblical chronology they found themselves in a perspective,
lacking the predetermined chronological frame. The chronology of origins,
development, changes and substitutions had to be established anew. The ques-
tion of the chronological position of a phenomenon – in our case the human
being and the variability of his appearance, was put in to the foreground.
With the loss of the divine creator the search for causes for their morpholog-
ical variability started.
In the moment when with the consolidation of evolutionism as the
dominant scientific and social paradigm the conceptual image of the world
changed, the “others” were constituted with a new, scientific method. Hu-
manity gained its complete opposition trapped in to kin relations. Fossi-
le humans were not a race, representing a degenerated form of modern hu-
mans, but a species fighting for survival in a wild world. Their name became
a synonym for their appearance – birth of modern science created the Nean-
derthals.
It was an image identical to the wild man from the Middle ages, image
which became familiar in popular visual culture of the 20th century. It be-
came so natural that we can hardly imagine that our ancestors might have
looked differently. But the modern creators of images ignore their origins,
they ignore its long and with different meanings laden past and present them
just as results of modern science leading the observers in to erroneous convic-
tion that they are looking at the truth and not at just another interpretation
(Berman 1999, 296).
Another element which appeared in the moment when paleoanthropo-
logy was born was the full swing of printing. It enabled an increase in produ-
ction of scientific works and made them easily accessible. At the same time it
caused with the publication of popular science magazines the invasion of sci-
ence in to newspapers. Scientific results became translated in to visual ima-
ges which were accessible and understandable to a broader and less critical au-
dience. Images of Neanderthals were in the moment when the exceeded the
221
