PÉRON (François).

Lot 272
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PÉRON (François).
Observations on Anthropology, or the Natural History of Man, the need to be concerned with the advancement of this science, and the importance of the admission to Captain Baudin's Fleet of one or more Naturalists, specially charged with the Research to be carried out on this subject. S.l.n.d. [at the end]: [Paris], De l'Imprimerie de Stoupe, An 8 [1799-1800]. Plaquette in-8 of 15 pages, bradel modern paperboard. Original edition. An important text for the history of anthropology. This opuscule enabled François Péron (1775-1810), at the time a simple medical student and disciple of Cuvier, to join the expedition of Nicolas Baudin (1800-1804) to the Southern Lands: he thus became the first official anthropologist of a scientific expedition and the author of the first work of physical anthropology in the field ever carried out in Oceania, if not in the world (A. and J. Ducros, "Nouvelle anthropologie au temps de la Révolution", in Bulletins et mémoires de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, 1988, pp. 289-292). It is the only inventory of the collection of objects relating to the history of man reported by the Baudin Expedition [...] consisting of weapons, utensils, and various ornaments, obtained by barter or given as gifts by the notables of Timor and Port-Jackson. ...] Péron made the first detailed contributions to the ethnography and anthropology of populations barely touched by the European navigators, and whose last representative will disappear seventy years later as a result of the genocide of the "Black War" (A. and J. Ducros, "L'Expédition Baudin aux Terres australes et l'anthropologie de François Péron" in Anthropologie et Préhistoire, n°100, 1989, pp. 12-23). Note the use, p. 14, of the term anthropologist, probably one of the first appearances of the word in a printed text. Some slight reddening and slight wetting in the head.
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