The Annual Congress of the German Anthropological Society

Abstract

THE thirty-first Congress of the German Anthropological Society was held in the University town of Halle from September 24–27. In addition to its rich University collections, a special interest is attached to Halle as being the seat of the oldest German society for encouraging the study of natural science, viz. the Leopoldina-Carolina Academy, which is thus comparable to the Royal Society in this country. To students of prehistoric archæology, the Prussian province of Saxony is chiefly interesting from the fact of the existence of copper-mines at Eisleben, some little distance from Halle. The meetings were held under the presidency of Prof. Virchow, assisted by Prof. Ranke. At the opening session on Monday, September 24, the presidential address (dealing with the general progress of anthropological study and teaching) was followed by a series of addresses from representatives of the University and town of Halle, of which that of the local secretary, Dr. Förtsch, is particularly noteworthy as containing a sketch of local prehistoric archæology, a field of research in which Dr. Fortsch has been particularly active, and which he has popularised with evident success. Of the subsequent communications to the Congress, the majority of which dealt with archæology, there appear to us most worthy of mention the discussion opened by Prof. Virchow on the “Earliest appearance of the Slavs in Germany,” and the account (illustrated with excellent lantern slides) given by Dr. Birkner (Munich) of the investigation of the graves of the German Emperors in Speyer. Prof, v. Fritzsch (Halle) and Dr. Lehmann-Nitzsche (La Plata) rendered interesting accounts of discoveries of prehistoric man in Thüringia and in the Argentine respectively, the latter record being still the subject of investigation as regards the exact antiquity (Tertiary period) claimed for the find.