Turkey

The study of human remains recovered from archaeological excavations was started in Turkey by German researchers in the late 19th century. The first reports on ancient human skeletons were only concerned with cranial morphology. German researchers such as Rudolf Virchow (1882, 1884, 1896) and Felix von Luschan (1911) were among those who studied ancient skulls from various archaeological sites in order to describe the cranial types of the early inhabitants of Turkey. The history of Turkish anthropology started in 1925, following the foundation of the Republic

of Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The Republic of Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk along secular and modernist lines. The desire to Westernize Turkey at this time led to the foundation of modern institutions as well as new universities including modern scientific disciplines such as anthropology. The Turkish Anthropological Research Centre (Centre des Recherches Anthropologiques de la

Turquie) was first established in 1925 as a subdivision within the Istanbul University Medical School (Istanbul Darülfünunu Tıp Fakültesi). In the same year, the first issue of the Turkish Anthropological Journal (Revue Turque d’Anthropologie) was published. The aim of this research centre and the journal was to collect the anthropological works that had been undertaken or were being undertaken in Turkey and to train young researchers (Kansu 1940). These first Turkish researchers believed that the science of (physical) anthropology was the key to identifying the place of the Turks among the ethnic/racial groups in the world (Kansu 1940). Between 1925 and 1929, skulls were collected from Turkish-Islamic cemeteries in Istanbul and they were measured at the Research Centre. In 1927, S¸evket Aziz Kansu, who was a medical assistant at Istanbul University Medical School,

was sent to the Anthropological Institute in Paris by the government to acquire an anthropological education. He studied at Broca’s Anthropological Laboratory at École des Hautes Études with Professor G. Papillaut. He returned to Turkey with a Diplôme des Sciences Anthropologiques in 1929 and worked as an assistant professor at the Istanbul University Medical School until 1933. At that time the Anthropological Research Centre moved to the Faculty of Sciences of Istanbul University. Kansu worked in the new Anthropological Institute until 1935 and taught several anthropology courses.