Aufarbeitung der Kolonialzeit am Institut für Anatomie in Rostock: Welchen Beitrag kann die Rechtsmedizin dazu leisten?

Introduction

The late nineteenth century was the age of colonial powers and industrialization, which facilitated the exploration of the world and its inhabitants. Colonization led to the exploration and exploitation of resources in overseas territories. Travelers brought back not only cultural goods but also skulls and bones of the “natives” as specimens. These were not only intended to illustrate the cultural practices of the indigenous population but also to be used for research purposes. The aim was to determine the differences between the various human “races” in a series of measurements, particularly on skulls. In this context, the anatomist Friedrich Merkel set up such a “race skull collection” in Rostock in order to teach the newly emerging subject of anthropology.

Goals

Recently, Germany has also dedicated itself to researching its colonial past and in doing so has made use of provenance research—analyzing the origin of collection “objects” and the circumstances of their acquisition. The main question to be clarified here is how especially human remains were collected, in particular, whether there were “contexts of injustice”, i.e., whether colonial power relations were exploited in order to obtain such “specimens” for the respective collection.

In this context, the non-European skulls from the Institute of Anatomy in Rostock were also examined in an interdisciplinary research project funded by the German Lost Art Foundation.

Material and methods

Historical information on the human remains in the Rostock anatomical collection was sparse or non-existent. Historical research was therefore carried out and the skulls were examined anthropologically. After detailed questions arose about individual skulls, these were also examined by forensic experts.

Results

This article presents two human skulls (Cd 35 “Bergdamara” and Ce 22 “Alt-Peruaner”) , which were assessed by forensic experts with respect to visible bone defects. Healed impression fractures on Cd 35, skull modifications and post-mortem bone defects on Ce 22 were found. In the assessment of the abnormalities, the anthropological reports were supplemented by the forensic medical assessment.

Summary

The importance of the different perspectives of the cooperating specialist disciplines becomes particularly clear in the example of provenance research. Although forensic medical input has so far been unusual in provenance research projects, it can be a valuable addition.

In principle, historical injustice should be reassessed and the handling of human remains in medical collections should be reconsidered, unless they originate from the body donation system that is common today.