Hermann Klaatsch and his photographic representations of Australian aborigines during his scientific trip through Australia (1904-1907)

Abstract

The German anatomist and palaeontologist Hermann Klaatsch arrived in Australia to study the aborigines in March 1904. The aim of his trip was to continue his research on the phylogenetic history of humanity and test his colleague at the University of Heidelberg Otto Schoetensack’s hypothesis that Australia was the cradle of humankind. He travelled the country’s coastline without interruption, except for a trip of a few months to Java, until May 1906. During his trip, which also included Tasmania, Klaatsch studied the aborigines from an anthropological, craniological, and material culture perspective, taking notes, making drawings, taking photographs of the natives, and compiling ethnographic collections which were dispatched to several German museums. Klaatsch made nearly 400 photographs of Australian natives and took plaster casts of the foot of an individual, owing to its atavistic anatomy. This latter generated a misunderstanding in a local newspaper that soon reached the international media, about the alleged discovery of the “missing link” in Australia. On his return from Australia in April 1907, Klaatsch was appointed extraordinary professor in anatomy, anthropology and ethnography, and curator of collections at the anatomical institute and the ethnological museum at the University of Breslau (Wroclaw, Polonia).