Adolf Bastian German ethnologist Date of Birth: 26.06.1826 Country: Germany

Biography of Adolf Bastian

Adolf Bastian, a German ethnologist, was born on June 26, 1826, in Bremen. He embarked on his first of many voyages in 1850, serving as a ship's doctor on a journey to Australia. From then until 1903, he traveled around the world, visiting the Middle East, both shores of the Pacific Ocean, the west coast of Africa, as well as South and East Asia. His major publication based on these travels was the six-volume work "The Peoples of Eastern Asia" (Die Vlker des stlichen Asien, 1866–1871).

Together with Rudolf Virchow, Bastian co-founded the Anthropological Society in Berlin in 1869 and the Society for Central African Research in 1870. When the Royal Ethnographic Museum (later renamed the Museum of Ethnology) was built in Berlin in 1886, he became its first director.

Bastian asserted that the similarity of customs in different parts of the world is a product of identical forms of thinking, which he called "elementary ideas." During the early stages of societal development, these elementary ideas are formed as "folk concepts" influenced by the geographical environment. Later, they undergo modifications under the influence of historical factors. This concept is expounded in his work "Ethnic Elementary Ideas in the Study of Man" (Ethnische Elementargedanken in der Lehre von Menschen, 1895).

Among his other works, Bastian's book "Man in History" (Der Mensch in der Geschichte, 1860) is noteworthy. He passed away on February 2, 1905, in Port of Spain, Trinidad.