Existing comment:
Hrdlicka Collection:
Ales Hrdlicka, born in Eastern Bohemia in 1869, became a curator in the Department of Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution, and is known as America's "Father of Physical Anthropology." In 1910 and 1913, Dr. Hrdlicka, with the permission of the Peruvian government, collected thousands of skulls and bones from vandalized prehistoric cemeteries in Peru and brought them to the United States. Most of the osteological material was taken to the Smithsonian Institution, but nearly one thousand specimens were brought to San Diego for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition as part of the most comprehensive physical anthropology exhibition ever shown. This assemblage included examples of rare bone pathologies, injuries, and a series of seventy trephinated skulls. The collection became the core of the physical anthropology holdings at the San Diego Museum of Man. |