The making of historical bodies: sex, race, and type in the beginnings of the Romanian physical anthropology
The making of historical bodies: sex, race, and type in the beginnings of the Romanian physical anthropology

Summary/Abstract: Human remains are a particular type of archaeological resource, the material evidence of past individuals. From its beginnings, archaeology and osteoarchaeology seemed to have divided their understanding of the human body and focus of study: while the first was interested in the social and historical dimension of the body, the latter focused on the body-as-biological organism. However, in this process even the notion of the „biological” body is not that clear cut and stable, and the case of the early Romanian anthropology is a relevant example. The goal of this presentation is to explore the meanings that the osteoarchaeological body took in this particular context. Starting from Francisc I. Rainer’s (the founder of the Institute of Anthropology in Bucharest) research on a Paleolithic human skull, along his observations on archaeological artefacts and populations, I intend to highlight the way in which the link between archaeology and biology/anatomy was constructed through the concepts of race, genetics, functional anatomy and evolution. In his view, the body appeared as a historical entity, the locus for understanding human variability, with its different parts being considered as diagnostic elements for studying the history of humanity.

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