Bones and Devices in the Constitution of Paleontology in Argentina at the End of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Whereas historiography of the debates on “early man in America” isolates Florentino Ameghino's ideas on human evolution from his paleontological and geological work, this paper presents Ameghino's ideas on human ancestors in regard to the controversies over the origin and dispersion of mammals. Therefore, this paper analyzes the constitution of paleontology in Argentina at the end of nineteenth century by describing, firstly, the Ameghino brothers' organization of research. By tackling this aspect I want also to discuss the place of science in late nineteenth-century Argentina. Secondly, I will sketch “Ameghino's ideas” about Patagonia as a center of distribution of mammals, the age of Patagonian strata, and the South American origin of humankind. The Ameghino brothers' logistics of fieldwork created not only the means for finding a remarkable fossil fauna but also a trap that undermined their scientific credibility. Therefore, I will focus on the problem of fieldwork in “distant” places and of scientific wandering in Patagonia. In the polemics presented here, language, transportation systems, visual representations, and technical devices were crucial elements for the creation of paleontological objects.

Entre mares e continentes: aspectos da trajetória científica de Hermann von Ihering, 1850-1930

“…1 See Ambrosetti (1912) and Podgorny (1997Podgorny ( , 2002Podgorny ( , 2005a, works of reference on Florentino Ameghino. 2 The over three hundred letters Ihering andAmeghino exchanged (Ameghino, 1935, 1936) constitute a boundless set of documents with information on the paleontology, geology, anthropology and zoogeography of South America, which we have used in several articles and continue to source as part of CNPq Project 477134/2011-4, "The global nature of scientific cultures in the early twentieth century: a study of land bridges by Hermann von Ihering (1850Ihering ( -1930 …”

Buenos Aires, 1884. How the fragility of a few skeletons triumphed over the project for a Grand National Museum

“…concLuSIonES La ubicación del museo en la ciudad, las grandes salas de exhibición y los edificios monumentales cobraron para los científicos un valor simbólico y político. representaron su capacidad de negociación y las alianzas tejidas para conseguirlos, ya no tanto como necesidad para su trabajo cotidiano sino como monumentos a su capacidad de gestionar recursos para el desarrollo de disciplinas hasta entonces encarriladas privadamente (Podgorny, 1997(Podgorny, , 2005(Podgorny, , 2009. Permanece como un tema pendiente la relación entre los científi-cos y las exhibiciones, un espacio que, aparentemente, estuvo dedicado casi con exclusividad al público general.…”

“…En esa misma línea, se hacían evidentes los intercambios entre los naturalistas e investigadores del hemisferio sur. Interesados en describir la fauna, la flora, el reino mineral y las características de los grupos humanos de la parte austral del continente, pronto aprendieron que se hacía necesario conocer el estado de la cuestión en las zonas equivalentes de África, oceanía, Australia y algunas zonas del océano Índico (Podgorny, 2005;Lopes & Podgorny, 2007 (Ameghino, 1934: 455) En la medida que los directores de los museos conocían los progresos de las instituciones análogas de otros lugares del mundo, la historiografía también hubo de dar cuenta de esas diná-micas que mediaron en la recepción de las ideas y los modelos de un museo de primer orden: las imágenes del museo ideal resultaron de una combinación de distintos factores, tal como la cercanía geográfica, la competencia o rivalidad entre ciudades o equipos de trabajo, las afinidades o intercambios con determinados centros metropolitanos.…”

Cenas de tempos profundos: ossos, viagens, memórias nas culturas da natureza no Brasil

“…14 For a fundamental discussion on the question of language and translation, especially concerning South American paleontology, see Podgorny, 2005. 15 "For Lund, laboratory and office work were not enough. As with all great naturalists, he wished to personally study in situ the conditions of life and the development of beings, for which only the herbariums and collections enabled him to determine the organization.. Reasons of health, I believe, were not the only ones that urged him to pursue the idea of traveling to those distant countries that began to concern him in 1825" (Reinhardt, 1884, p.11).…”