Editing Craniometry (section)

== Craniometry and anthropology ==
[[Image:Huxley - Mans Place in Nature.jpg|thumb|280px| '''Pithecometra''': In the frontispiece from his 1863 ''[[Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature]]'', [[Thomas Huxley]] compared skeletons of apes to humans.]]
{{Further|Anthropology |Physical anthropology}}
In 1784, [[Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton]], who wrote many [[comparative anatomy]] memoirs for the [[Académie française]], published the ''Mémoire sur les différences de la situation du grand trou occipital dans l'homme et dans les animaux'' (which translates as ''Memoir on the Different Positions of the [[Foramina of the skull#List of foramina|Occipital Foramen]] in Man and Animals'').

Six years later, [[Pieter Camper]] (1722–1789), distinguished both as an artist and as an anatomist, published some lectures containing an account of his craniometrical methods. These laid the foundation of all subsequent work.{{sfn|Duckworth|1911|p=372}}

Pieter Camper invented the "facial angle", a measure meant to determine [[animal intelligence|intelligence]] among various species. According to this technique, a "facial angle" was formed by drawing two lines: one horizontally from the [[nostril]] to the ear; and the other perpendicularly from the advancing part of the upper [[Human jawbone|jawbone]] to the most prominent part of the [[forehead]].

Camper claimed that antique statues presented an angle of 90°, Europeans of 80°, Black people of 70° and the orangutan of 58°, thus displaying a hierarchic view of mankind, based on a [[decadence|decadent]] conception of history. This scientific research was continued by [[Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire]] (1772–1844) and [[Paul Broca]] (1824–1880), founder of the Anthropological Society in 1859 in France.

In 1856, workers found in a limestone quarry the skull of a [[Neanderthal]] man, thinking it to be the remains of a bear. They gave the material to amateur naturalist [[Johann Karl Fuhlrott]], who turned the fossils over to anatomist [[Hermann Schaaffhausen]]. The discovery was jointly announced in 1857, giving rise to [[paleoanthropology]].

Measurements were first made to compare the skulls of men with those of other animals. This wide comparison constituted the first subdivision of craniometric studies.{{sfn|Duckworth|1911|p=372}} The artist-anatomist Camper developed a theory to measure the facial angle, for which he is chiefly known in later anthropological literature.

Camper's work followed 18th-century scientific theories. His measurements of facial angle were used to liken the skulls of non-Europeans to those of apes.
[[Image:Primate skull series with legend cropped.png|left|250px|thumb|Selection of [[primate]] skulls]]
"Craniometry" also played a role in the foundation of the United States and the ideologies or racism that would become ingrained in the American psyche. As John Jeffries articulates in ''The Collision of Culture'' the Anglo-American hegemony present in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth century helped establish "The American School of Craniometry" which helped establish the American and Western concept of [[Race (human categorization)|race]]. As Jeffries points out the rigid establishment of race in eighteenth-century American society came from a new school of sciences which sought to distance [[Anglo-Saxons]] from the African American population. The distancing of the African population in American society through craniometry helped greatly in the efforts to scientifically prove they were inferior. The ideologies set forth by this new "American School" of thought were then used to justify maintaining an enslaved population to sustain the increasing number of slave plantations in the [[Southern United States|American South]] during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Black Popular Culture|last=Wallace|first=Michele|publisher=Bay Press|year=1992|isbn=978-1-56584-459-9|location=Seattle|pages=156–157}}</ref>

In the 19th century the names of notable contributors to the literature of craniometry quickly increased in number. While it is impossible to analyse each contribution, or even record a complete list of the names of the authors, notable researchers who used craniometric methods to compare humans to other animals included [[T. H. Huxley]] (1825–1895) of England and Paul Broca.{{sfn|Duckworth|1911|p=372}}

By comparing skeletons of apes to man, Huxley backed up [[Charles Darwin]]'s [[theory of evolution]] and developed the "[[Pithecometra principle]]", which stated that man and ape were descended from a common ancestor.

[[Ernst Haeckel]] (1834–1919) became famous for his now outdated "[[recapitulation theory]]", according to which each individual mirrored the evolution of the whole species during his life. Although outdated, his work contributed then to the examination of human life.

These researches on skulls and skeletons helped liberate 19th-century European science from its [[ethnocentric]] biases.<ref name=HuxAI>"Cultural Biases Reflected in the Hominid Fossil Record" (history), by Joshua Barbach and Craig Byron, 2005, ''ArchaeologyInfo.com'' webpage:
[http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/perspectives003.htm ArchaeologyInfo-003] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110516121531/http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/perspectives003.htm |date=16 May 2011 }}.</ref> In particular, [[Eugène Dubois]]' (1858–1940) discovery in 1891 in Indonesia of the "[[Java Man]]", the first specimen of ''[[Homo erectus]]'' to be discovered, demonstrated mankind's deep ancestry outside Europe.