¿Peligrosos intrusos o influencia benéfica? El papel del Institut de Paléontologie Humaine en el desarrollo de la arqueología prehistórica en España (1900-1936)

José María Lanzarote Guiral

doi:10.5209/rev_cmpl.2013.v24.n2.43365

Abstract

In this paper I examine the role of international scholars in the making of prehistoric research in Spain. I focus on the activities of the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine (IPH), created in Paris in 1910. In the years immediately preceding the First World War, two IPH professors, the French Henri Breuil and the German Hugo Obermaier, did extensive research in the prehistoric archaeological sites and the decorated caves of the Iberian Peninsula. Specialists from all over Europe and the USA travelled to Spain to collaborate with them, and the results of the their work were presented internationally. Nevertheless, the professional exchange with their Spanish counterparts soon became fraught with scientific disputes and personal quarrels, when some Spanish scholars accused them of seizing the relics of Spain’s national past, describing them as agents of scientific colonialism. Taking this case as reference, I set out to overcome the (false) dichotomy between nationalism and internationalism in the writing of history of archaeology and I seek to explore the influence of the nationalist paradigm on the historiography of prehistoric archaeology in Spain.

Highlights

In autumn 1910, the Institute of Human Paleontology (Institut de Paléontologie Humaine; hereafter IPH) was founded in Paris as an international research center for the study of prehistory
The scientific activities of the IPH in Spain have been previously analyzed from the point of view of a historiography that describes the development of archaeology in Spain as national in scale and nationalist in spirit
The process of the professionalization of prehistory in Europe in the first decades of the 20th century resulted from a complex interplay of scientific, social and economic interests, and was inspired by both the internationalism of the academic world and the opportunities and constraints of the nation-state building process

Summary

Introduction

The creation of the IPH implied a decisive move towards the institutionalization and professionalization of prehistory in France, carried out by means of centralization in Paris In this sense, the IPH opposed the large community of French amateur archaeologists, scattered across the whole country and organized since 1904 via the French Prehistoric Society (Société Préhistorique Française). In contrast to Breuil’s, Obermaier’s activities concentrated on the excavation of El Castillo cave (figure 2), considered at the time as one of the best Palaeolithic sites of Europe, due to its very complete stratigraphic sequence This site became, in economic and scientific terms, the IPH’s largest project in its first years; it attracted a large number of international scholars, who visited the site or collaborated on the digging seasons. His nomination to the IPH confirmed him as one of the leading scholars in the field (Lanzarote Guiral 2011)

Defining national heritage: the Spanish reaction

War and peace

Conclusions