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Gustaf Kossinna
Summary
Gustaf Kossinna (28 September 1858 – 20 December 1931) was a German philologist and archaeologist who was Professor of German Archaeology at the University of Berlin.
Along with Carl Schuchhardt he was the most influential German prehistorian of his day, and was creator of the techniques of settlement archaeology (Siedlungsarchaeologie). His nationalistic theories about the origins of the Germanic peoples and Indo-Europeans influenced aspects of National Socialist ideology. Though politically discredited after World War II, Kossinna's methodological approach has greatly influenced archaeology up to the present day.
In the years following World War II, Kossinna's theories of settlement archaeology were widely dismissed as pseudoscience. Recent discoveries in archaeogenetics have prompted a renewed discussion of Kossinna's legacy and the significance of migration in prehistory.
Kossinna was a Germanized Mazur He was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia. His father was a teacher at the secondary-school level. Kossinna attended the Königliche Litthauische Provinzialschule in Tilsit. As a child he learned Latin and piano.
As a university student he matriculated at a number of universities, studying classical and then Germanic philology in the universities of Göttingen, Leipzig, Berlin and Strasbourg. He also studied German history, local history and art history. Kossinna was influenced greatly by Karl Müllenhoff, who encouraged him to research the origins of Indo-European and Germanic culture. He also came under the influence of Otto Tischler and Friedrich Ratzel.
Kossinna obtained his doctorate at Strasbourg in 1887 in the subject of the early records of the high-Frankish language. From 1888 to 1892 he worked as a librarian. During this time Kossinna read widely and published a number of scientific papers on the ancient history of Germany. In 1896 his ideas were expressed in his lecture "The Pre-Historical Origins of the Teutons in Germany".
In 1902, Kossinna was appointed Professor of German Archaeology at the University of Berlin.
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