Body mapping: anthropological investigations of Dr. Roberto Lehmann-Nitsche, Buenos Aires: 1897-1908

Abstract

The last quarter of 19th Century was the time of great researches on the human morphology. In this context, physical anthropology, which according to its promoters was the true anthropology, produced one of its most ambitious projects of cooperation at a global scale: the formation of a universal archive of body type varieties. Arrived to our southern coasts in 1897, the anthropologist Robert Lehmann-Nitsche some become one of the most enthusiastic promoters of “physonomic ideas” in the local scientific context. The aim of this article consist of a critical approach to Lehmann-Nitsche's ignored —and fragmentary consulted— researches on body types in the “sub-world” of late 19 th Century Argentina.