THE ORIGINS OF THE FIELD OF HUMAN PALEONT OLOGY - AN INTERPRETATIVE ESSAY

A historical and epistemological analysis of the field of human paleon tology during the 19th century brings a new light on its relation with evolutionary biology. The rise of the field of human paleontology is indeed closely related to the establishment of theories of evolution. Yet, some aspects of human paleontology are not rooted within the trad ition of evolutionary biology, but within a host of research tradition s such as anthropology, history and philology. Therefore, we should no t be speaking of a single but rather of the several origins of the fie ld of human evolution. The recognition of such multiple sources to the field of human evolution is crucial to the understanding of the gap s eparating the theoretical conceptions on human phylogeny on one hand, and the interpretations given to the human fossil remains on the other , during the second half of the 19th century. If human fossil remains were not interpreted in a typically evolutionary fashion, so to speak, it is not because the field of human evolution was dominated by anti- evolutionists. Rather, the nature of the fossil record was of limited value to produce global phylogenetic interpretations. Instead, regiona l genealogies or phylogenies of the various European peoples were sugg ested. The problem was, therefore, essentially epistemological. The an alysis of this episode in human evolution is preceded by a historiogra phical reflexion in order to permit a fresh reading of the historical ''facts'' surrounding the rise of the field of human paleontology.