The Archaeology of Race: The Eugenic Ideas of Francis Galton and Flinders Petrie

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Petrie recognized that in Galton's Hereditary Genius the statistical evidence clearly favored practicing eugenics but that 'the historical consequences have not been sufficiently noted'. In the first chapter of Janus, Petrie stated that 'the character of a people is the essential basis of all their institutions and government', and if a state is successful it is because a majority of its people, especially those in positions of power, were of good character.

Petrie focused here, mainly on how the individual affected societal development. There was some discussion comparing a competitive capitalist economy to a communist one. For Petrie and other social evolutionists at this time, competition was the only way to advance, and so therefore, communism was detrimental to civilization, both in theory and in practice. Janus explained Petrie's rejection of social welfare and distribution of wealth, claiming that it 'has proved an entire failure in national economics'.

He argued that in a welfare system, the population was basically given permission to stagnate economically and morally, to produce offspring that would behave in the same manner, and continue to hurt society. This situation represented the primary question that Petrie attempted to answer: One major stipulation in Janus was that changes must be brought about gradually.

Petrie argued that violent revolutions do not solve problems and they, in fact, lead 'to worse evils than those which [they] are sought to remedy'. What we need is to try to give effect to the gospel of giving to him that hath and taking away from him that hath not. The most likely opening for such a line of advance would be giving partial state maintenance to the best stocks, so as to ensure large returns from them, and taxing down the worst stocks — exactly the opposite course to the present craze. He continued by describing certain government bodies that should regulate this kind of activity.

He even referred to forced sterilization of the 'worst stocks' of women, so that they might be able to marry and be allowed to have intercourse with their husbands without the state having to monitor their reproduction. The ideas and actions Petrie argued for in Janus were not novel, as Galton's and Pearson's previous writings show. In fact, it stated simply that Janus was an amateurish work by someone who did not know the subject about which he wrote so assertively. Four years after Janus, Petrie published The Revolutions of Civilisation, a short volume, the main purpose of which was to find the 'real nature of human progress'.

Ancient Egypt and Medieval Europe. He used sculpture as the basis for the comparison between civilizations, because 'it is available over so long a period, in so many countries, and so readily presented to the mind, that it may be well to begin with that as a standard subject for comparison, and afterwards look at other activities'. In an earlier work, Methods and Aims in Archaeology , Petrie had also used Ancient Egypt and early Europe as subjects of comparison. He made the connection there because '[t]his subject is not only a fascinating one historically, but it includes a great variety of different kinds of evidence… and evidence which is of various degrees of certainty'.

He continued, '[m]oreover this evidence has been more actively and continually attacked than any other class of discoveries of late years, and hence the most that can be argued against it is well known'. As he had argued in Janus, Petrie argued in Revolutions that the more mentally capable individuals in a society, the more the civilization would advance. First, he argued from the physical evidence and the development of political and social ideas that '[w]hat man does is the essential in each civilization, how he advances in capacities, and what he bequeaths to future ages'.

Then, stating the importance of industrious men, Petrie made an argument for the selection of the most capable:. There is no advance without strife. Man must strive with Nature or with man, if he is not to fall back and degenerate. The harder a nation strives, the more capable it will be. This is not only the slow result of selection, but it is the immediate result of selection, it is the immediate result in each individual, produced by the attitude of his mind. The operative words in this statement are 'capable, selection, individual'. It is these three points to which Petrie adhered to in his social theory.

He had already made clear that slow, gradual selection of capable individuals was much more effective than brief, violent group uprisings, and in Revolutions he made it clear that it was only by the hard work of able men that civilization would continue. In Revolutions, Petrie argued that without diversity and competition within societies, there would be no progression.

In man's striving with Nature and with other men, the stronger would survive and be selected to continue. This was true in physical abilities, like war and battle, as well as in mental abilities, like art and science. Again he argued against economic, mental and physical equality, because with it, there would be no reason to achieve more. Finally, he claimed that in the not-too-distant future eugenics would be able to establish a new, capable civilization in the place of an old, unfit one. The future progress of man may depend as much on isolation to establish a type, as on fusion of types when established.

This statement was a strong argument for eugenic practices to begin as soon as possible so that the gradual selection process could benefit man in the near future, as opposed to at an unspecified distant time. The segregation of 'fine' races would be possible, as he had argued in Janus, through state-monitored marriages and reproduction, and state-monitored abstinence and sterilization. Although Petrie did not argue specifically for individual practices such as these in Revolutions, he built on the context and arguments that had been established in Janus and other eugenic works.

The social solutions by eugenic methods that Petrie presented in Janus and the evidence he used to support his arguments were very similar to what Galton had argued in Hereditary Genius and what Pearson had advocated in his work at the Galton Laboratory. Galton stated that only the traits that 'shall be most advantageous to the future inhabitants of the earth' should be selected. Galton had also proposed sterilization, state-regulated marriage and reproduction.

Furthermore, Pearson and the Laboratory had drawn the same conclusions as Petrie, in that over time, 'the mean of the population for a given character might be deliberately moved in an evolutionary line of eugenic advance'. While Petrie's expressed purpose was to demonstrate the path down which civilization as a whole was developing, and in doing so he focused on the individual as the important component of a good society, his underlying purpose was to argue socially and historically for eugenic practices.

Until Petrie, this discussion had been confined to biology. However, both biologists and archaeologists, represented by Galton, Pearson and the UCL Eugenic Lab at one end and Petrie at the other, agreed that it was the small, gradual changes caused by the controlled selection of favorable traits that would allow civilization to evolve in a eugenically favorable direction.

It is clear that Petrie's life and career consisted of much more than winters in Egypt and summers in England. His corpus of work is extensive and contains a wide range of subjects. The social commentary in his reports and his diaries can teach us much about the importance and influence of archaeology at this time, both within the discipline itself, as well as with regards to the usefulness of physical remains in sciences outside of archaeology. The particular mingling of Petrie's works in both archaeology and eugenics brings both sciences into interdisciplinary studies.

Including this facet of Petrie's life demonstrates that there are holes left in the literature about him; it also begins to shed some light on other aspects of the history of archaeology. More importantly, whatever the outcome may have been, it reveals that Petrie was able to lend the authority of historical evidence to the eugenics movement. His historical and anthropological arguments allowed Galton to make his claims more authoritative by combining quantitative data with historical trends in civilization and heredity.

It was noted earlier on in this paper, that one historian characterized Petrie's involvement in the eugenics movement as 'unfortunate' and claimed that he was 'badly misled'.

In the history of eugenics, it is apparent that there are more than a few authors who believe that they should apologize for their subject's involvement in such a science. These apologies tend to inhibit in-depth work in the history of archaeology and of eugenics, as it is in the present case. We should not be afraid that our heroes' reputations would be tainted.

Their influence should instead be embraced while respecting the outcomes of which they could not have known or expected. Petrie's career was multifaceted and influential. While demonstrating Petrie's wide range of involvement in science at this time, I believe the evidence presented here also points to the larger issue of the polymathic tendencies of many men and women of science in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

The time in which Petrie, Pearson, and Galton were practicing was on the cusp of the dilettante gentlemanly sciences of the nineteenth century and the static specialization of the mid-twentieth century. This situation allowed for people to be experts in one or two areas, while leaving room for interest and involvement in various others. Petrie is easily recognizable as a vital figure in the history of archaeology, but his work in eugenics has, until now, been mostly overlooked.

Their help has only made this article better; any mistakes are my own. Sir Flinders Petrie, F. A Life in Archaeology, 2nd ed. University of Wisconsin Press, He was also a pioneer of scientific archaeology in Palestine. However, a few historians lately have argued that, because he was most interested in topographic information and the gathering of smaller material remains, especially in Egypt, he may not have been as influential in the practice of stratigraphic excavation as originally thought; see David L.

Browman and Douglas R.

The collections also include Amelia Blanford Edwards' collection, bequeathed to the University upon her death in and artefacts from multiple excavation seasons in Egypt and Palestine. See also Peter J. Ucko, 'The Biography of a Collection: A Future for the Past? Left Coast Press, Religious Tract Society, ; W. Letters from the Desert: The letters give a private picture of two very important figures in archaeology of the nineteenth century and especially demonstrate Hilda's equality in fieldwork and that Flinders demonstrates, both in action and in words, how much he needs, appreciates and supports Hilda on site.

Eugenics and Near Eastern Archaeology', in A. Studies in the Professionalization of Archaeology Albuquerque, N. University of New Mexico Press, pp.

Silberman discusses Petrie's work in eugenics in the context of the removal of his head after his death. Petrie wished for it to be removed and sent to the Royal College of Surgeons for further study. Pearson is even less present in the biography, and his only mentions are as Petrie's close friend and neighbor p. Cambridge University Press, — In each, Petrie is mentioned simply as having Galton as a guest at Abydos in Galton, Memories of my Life, p.

The Archaeology of Race. The Eugenic Ideas of Francis galton and Flinders Petrie

A deeper analysis of the personal relationships cannot be presented here, due to constraints of space and scope. For a further investigation of this aspect, see Kathleen L. Sheppard, '"You call this archaeology? Putnam's Sons ; W. In it he claimed that, if the Biblical chronology of time was right and for him it was , the pyramids could not have been built by the Egyptians, but only by strangers under divine guidance.

He had measured out 'pyramid inches' and tried to 'decipher the hidden message of the Great Pyramid' Drower, Flinders Petrie, p.

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Petrie and his father were interested in taking their own, more reliable measurements. Cambridge University Press p. One downside to his argument is that he does not contend with colonialism at all. Due to the fact that Britain came to occupy Egypt for over half a century beginning in , most historians acknowledge colonialism and imperialism — whether formal or informal — as the main impetus behind Egyptology in this period. Nationalism, Colonialism and the Past Oxford: Oxford University Press, , and she comes to the conclusion that it may have been a mixture of both objectives.

The archaeology of race : the eugenic ideas of Francis Galton and Flinders Petrie

This seems to be the most plausible inference. Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity Cambridge: Harvard University Press; reprint edition, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, , p. Young, , 'Darwinism is Social', In D. The Darwinian Heritage, Princeton: Princeton University Press p. The Free Press p. For a further discussion of some of these ideas, see Theodore Porter, , Karl Pearson: Petrie was a member of the Anti-Socialist League for a number of years as well as a member, later President, of the 'right-wing body, the British Constitution Association' Drower, Flinders Petrie, pp.

Petrie and Pearson clearly did not share the same political sentiments, but their scientific goals and ideals brought them together. Macmillan ; Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty. Their Nature and Nurture London: He introduces the idea in the way in which he would continue to study it for the rest of his life: The issue of nature and nurture continues to be a volatile one in both biology and psychology.

Problems of Form, Function, and Transformation Cambridge: In it he argued that migrations of civilizations 'are a means of supplanting the less capable by the more capable' by using a number of examples, not the least of which was the measurement and analysis of the shapes, sizes, and types of skulls from Egyptian cemeteries Petrie, 'Migrations'; Drower, Flinders Petrie, p. Please enter recipient e-mail address es. The E-mail Address es you entered is are not in a valid format. Please re-enter recipient e-mail address es.

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You already recently rated this item. Your rating has been recorded. Write a review Rate this item: Preview this item Preview this item. The archaeology of race: London ; New York: English View all editions and formats Rating: Flinders -- William Matthew Flinders , -- Galton, Francis, -- View all subjects More like this User lists Similar Items. Allow this favorite library to be seen by others Keep this favorite library private. Find a copy in the library Finding libraries that hold this item Debbie Challis Find more information about: Publisher Synopsis Reveals an unexpected link between two major figures in early anthropology, and one that adds weight to my favourite Darwin quote, that: User-contributed reviews Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers.

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