Carl Wiman's legacy: 100 years of Swedish palaeontology

Abstract

The professor It was 1922. Carl Wiman waited outside the door to the government’s board room. He had travelled to Stockholm from Uppsala to request a meeting with the then prime minister, Hjalmar Branting. Wiman was determined to ask why the proposed establishment of a permanent chaired professorship in Palaeontology at Uppsala University had not been included in the recently listed propositions to government for the Swedish Riksdag. In those days, professorial appointments were made by the state. After a brief meeting, Wiman returned to Uppsala satisfied in the knowledge that the matter was settled (Frangsmyr 2012). Such was Wiman’s resourcefulness. “He liked things to happen rapidly, and even dramatically” (SaveSoderbergh 1946, p. 404). Eleven years earlier, in 1911, Carl Wiman had received a personal chair as the first Swedish Professor of Palaeontology. He was the leading palaeontologist in Sweden, and through his dedication, professionalism and “ruthless enthusiasm for his own task” (Save-Soderbergh 1946, p. 403), saw his most long-fought battle won in 1932 with the construction of a museum to house Uppsala University’s Institute of Palaeontology and its collections (Fig. 1). In many ways, Wiman’s museum has set the course for subsequent palaeontological research in Sweden. Certainly today his legacy is as strong as ever and continues to contribute at the forefront of international palaeontology. Very shortly after his death in 1944, Wiman’s close friends and proteges, von Hofsten (1944), Gunnar Save-Soderbergh (1946) and Birger Bohlin (1946) compiled his biography. A comprehensive bibliography presented by Bohlin (1937) to commemorate Wiman’s 70 birthday was also updated and published in dedication (Bohlin 1946). During his working life, Wiman produced some 112 scientific papers, many of which continue to be highly cited even today. However, Wiman’s legacy contributed much more than academic output. Its nucleus currently thrives within three interlinked research centres at Uppsala University – The Museum of Evolution, the Palaeobiology Programme in the Department of Earth Sciences, and the Sub-Department of Evolution and Development at the Evolutionary Biology Centre. Ebbestad & Berg-Madsen (2011a,b) and Frangsmyr (2012) recently documented the early history of palaeontology at Uppsala University and provided detailed commentaries on Wiman’s remarkable life and character. A synopsis of some major milestones is presented in Table 1. The legacy – collections and scientific discovery