The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
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List of the most influential people in Anthropology,
#2901
François Thureau-Dangin
1872 - 1944 (72 years)
François Thureau-Dangin was a French archaeologist, assyriologist and epigrapher. He played a major role in deciphering of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. He studied under Julius Oppert in Paris, and from 1895, was associated with duties performed at the Louvre, where in 1908, he was appointed assistant curator of the Oriental Antiquities department, in french the département des Antiquités orientales where he spent most of his career and whom he led from 1925 to 1928. On behalf of the Louvre museum, he conducted then excavations at Arslan Tash and at Til Barsip .
Go to Profile#2902
Charles Thomas Newton
1816 - 1894 (78 years)
Sir Charles Thomas Newton was a British archaeologist. He was made KCB in 1887. Life He was born in 1816, the second son of Newton Dickinson Hand Newton, vicar of Clungunford, Shropshire, and afterwards of Bredwardine, Herefordshire.
Go to Profile#2903
William E. Gates
1863 - 1940 (77 years)
William Edmond Gates was an American Mayanist. Most of his research focused around Mayan language hieroglyphs. He also collected Mesoamerican manuscripts. Gates studied Mayan-based languages like Yucatec Maya, Ch'olti', Huastec and Q'eqchi'. Biographies state that he could speak at least 13 languages. Works and archives related to Gates reside in the collections of Brigham Young University.
Go to Profile#2904
Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker
1784 - 1868 (84 years)
Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker was a German classical philologist and archaeologist. Biography Welcker was born at Grünberg, Hesse-Darmstadt. Having studied classical philology at the University of Giessen, in 1803 he was appointed master in the high school, an office which he combined with that of lecturer at the university. In 1806 he journeyed to Italy, and was for more than a year private tutor at Rome in the family of Wilhelm von Humboldt, who became his friend and correspondent.
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David Ruhnken
1723 - 1798 (75 years)
David Ruhnken was a Dutch classical scholar of German origin. Origins Ruhnken was born in Bedlin near Stolp, Pomerania Province, . After he had attended Latin school at Königsberg , his parents wanted him to enter the church, but after two years at the University of Wittenberg he determined to live the life of a scholar. At Wittenberg, Ruhnken studied with two distinguished professors, Johann Daniel Ritter and Johann Wilhelm von Berger. To them he owed a thorough grounding in ancient history and Roman antiquities and literature; and from them he learned a pure and vivid Latin style. At Witte...
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Joseph Anselm Feuerbach
1798 - 1851 (53 years)
Joseph Anselm Feuerbach was a German classical philologist and archaeologist. Biography Born in Jena, he studied history, philosophy and theology at the University of Erlangen from 1817, followed by studies of philology and archaeology at the University of Heidelberg . In 1825 he began work as a schoolteacher at the gymnasium in Speyer. In 1836 he was appointed professor of philology, antiquities and art history at the University of Freiburg.
Go to Profile#2907
Bror Emil Hildebrand
1806 - 1884 (78 years)
Bror Emil Hildebrand was a Swedish archaeologist, numismatist and museum director. From 1837 to 1879 he was Custodian of Ancient Monuments and Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters. From 1847 he was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and from 1866 a member of the Swedish Academy. In 1866, he founded the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm.
Go to Profile#2908
Albert Lythgoe
1868 - 1934 (66 years)
Albert Morton Lythgoe was an American archaeologist and Egyptologist. He is best known for his work for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for the support he gave to the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb, he releasing several key Metropolitan Museum staff to assist Howard Carter.
Go to Profile#2909
Carl Patsch
1865 - 1945 (80 years)
Carl Ludwig Patsch, also Karl Ludwig Patsch, ; was an Austrian Slavist, Albanologist, archaeologist and historian. Biography Carl Patsch was born in north-east Bohemia, as a son of Ludwig Patsch, a steward of an upper prince, but grew up in the Ukrainian villages of Marachivka and Slavuta. He spoke Czech, Polish and Russian as mother languages.
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Henry Schoolcraft
1793 - 1864 (71 years)
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was an American geographer, geologist, and ethnologist, noted for his early studies of Native American cultures, as well as for his 1832 expedition to the source of the Mississippi River. He is also noted for his major six-volume study of Native Americans commissioned by Congress and published in the 1850s.
Go to Profile#2911
Jonas Puzinas
1905 - 1978 (73 years)
Jonas Puzinas was a Lithuanian archaeologist and specialist on the prehistory of Lithuania. He belonged to the first generation of Lithuanian scholars who matured in independent Lithuania . He was the first scientifically trained archaeologist of Lithuania and he laid the foundations, including some of the basic terminology and periodization, for future archaeological studies. His work in Lithuania was cut short by World War II. In 1944, he retreated to Germany and then to the United States. There he continued his academic work, notably editing Lithuanian encyclopedias.
Go to Profile#2912
Francis Kelsey
1858 - 1927 (69 years)
Francis Willey Kelsey was an American classicist, professor, and archaeologist that would go on to lead the first expedition to the Near-East done by the University of Michigan . His papyrus findings and the collection of antiquities he acquired for the university brought him fame not only among University of Michigan faculty but around the world. Originally hailing from New York, he would teach at Lake Forest University, in Illinois, eventually coming to the University of Michigan. He was the secretary of the Archaeological Institute of America, Vice President, and eventually President, of t...
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William Clifford Massey
1917 - 1974 (57 years)
William Clifford Massey was an anthropologist who played a key role in the study of the prehistory of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. His scientific contributions included archaeological surveys, excavations, and the documentation of previous collections, as well as detailed analyses of ethnohistoric and linguistic evidence bearing of the region's prehistory.
Go to Profile#2914
Sjoerd Hofstra
1898 - 1983 (85 years)
Sjoerd Hofstra was a Dutch sociologist and anthropologist, best known as the first Dutch person to conduct ethnographic fieldwork in Africa, where he lived among the Mende in Sierra Leone. Hofstra was an animal protection advocate.
Go to Profile#2915
Thomas Gray
1716 - 1771 (55 years)
Thomas Gray was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar, and fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751. Gray was a self-critical writer who published only 13 poems in his lifetime, despite being very popular. He was even offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1757 after the death of Colley Cibber, though he declined.
Go to Profile#2916
Aleksandr Maksimov
1872 - 1941 (69 years)
Aleksandr Nikolayevich Maksimov was a Soviet ethnographer who focused on the history of the family, the clan and the economy. Career Aleksandr Maksimov was born in Oryol on 13 August 1872. He became a member of the circle formed by A.I. Ryazanov, although he did not immediately adopt the Marxist creeds of its leader. In 1894 he was arrested and deported to Arkhangelsk Governorate. There he became interested on ethnology. After returning to Moscow, Maksimov was made head of the ethnographic department of the Society of the Aficionados of the Natural Sciences, Anthropology and Ethnography , and...
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Kōsaku Hamada
1881 - 1938 (57 years)
Kōsaku Hamada, also known as Seiryō Hamada, was a Japanese academic, archaeologist, author and President of Kyoto University. Early life Hamada was born in Osaka. He was educated at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University; and he studied in England.
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George Byron Gordon
1870 - 1927 (57 years)
George Byron Gordon was a Canadian-American archaeologist, who graduated from Harvard University in 1894. While studying at Harvard, he participated in excavations at Copan in Honduras under the direction of John G. Owens in 1891. Following Owens’ death in the field, Gordon took command of the Copan expeditions from 1894 to 1895 and in 1900–1901. After his time in Honduras, George Byron Gordon was hired by the University of Pennsylvania where he led two expeditions to Alaska in 1905 and 1907. He spent the remainder of his twenty-four year employment at the University of Pennsylvania collectin...
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Otto Dempwolff
1871 - 1938 (67 years)
Otto Dempwolff was a German physician, linguist and anthropologist who specialized in the study of the Austronesian language family. Initially trained as a physician, Dempwolff began his linguistic research while serving as medical doctor in the German colonies German New Guinea and German East Africa. Under the mentorship of Carl Meinhof, he began his academic career at the Hamburgisches Kolonialinstitut, which later became part of the University of Hamburg. In 1931, he founded the "Seminar für indonesische und Südseesprachen", which he headed until his death in 1938. He was also appointed t...
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Axel Olai Heikel
1851 - 1924 (73 years)
Axel Olai Heikel was a Finnish ethnographer and archaeologist, and cousin of Viktor, Felix, Anna, and Ivar Heikel. He is one of the founders of ethnology in Finland. Biography Heikel was born on April 28, 1851, in Brändö, Åland, Finland, to vicar Carl Henrik and Emma Fredrika Heikel née Wallin.
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George Brown
1835 - 1917 (82 years)
George Brown was an English Methodist missionary and ethnographer. Early life and education George Brown was born at Barnard Castle, Durham, England, the son of George Brown, barrister, and his wife Elizabeth, née Dixon, sister of the wife of Rev. Thomas Buddle, missionary in New Zealand. Brown was educated at a private school and on leaving, became an assistant in a doctors surgery, was afterwards with a chemist, and then in a draper's shop. Brown reacted to his stepmother's discipline and attempted to run away to sea.
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Carl E. Guthe
1893 - 1974 (81 years)
Carl Eugen Guthe was an American academic and anthropologist, son of Karl Eugen Guthe, Professor of Physics and Dean of the Graduate Department of the University of Michigan, and Clara Belle née Ware of Grand Rapids, Mich. Guthe married Grace Ethel 12 September 1916 in Wayne, MI and they had three sons: Karl Frederick, Alfred Kidder, and James. Karl Frederick Guthe was professor emeritus of biological sciences at the University of Michigan. Alfred Kidder Guthe specialised in the archaeology of the US eastern seaboard, and became director of the Frank H. McClung museum at U Tennessee.
Go to Profile#2923
Panagiotis Kavvadias
1850 - 1928 (78 years)
Panagiotis Kavvadias or Cawadias was a Greek archaeologist. He was responsible for the excavation of ancient sites in Greece, including Epidaurus in Argolis and the Acropolis of Athens, as well as archaeological discoveries on his native island of Kephallonia. As Ephor General from 1885 until 1909, Kavvadias oversaw the expansion of the Archaeological Service and the introduction of Law 2646 of 1899, which increased the state's powers to address the illegal excavation and smuggling of antiquities.
Go to Profile#2924
Hans Hahne
1875 - 1935 (60 years)
Hans Hahne was a German physician and prehistorian. Life Hans Hahne was born the son of a sugar manufacturer. He attended school in Artern and after 1885 in Berlin and Magdeburg, where he graduated in 1894 from the Domgymnasium. At the Universities of Jena, Munich, and Leipzig, he studied natural sciences and medicine and received his MD in 1899. This was followed by specialist training in Bern, Berlin, and Leipzig. In 1902 Hahne settled in Magdeburg as an internist and neurologist, but closed his practice in 1905 to devote himself to prehistory and early history .
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Grigore Tocilescu
1850 - 1909 (59 years)
Grigore George Tocilescu was a Romanian historian, archaeologist, epigrapher and folkorist, member of Romanian Academy. He was a professor of ancient history at the University of Bucharest, author of Marele Dicționar Geografic al României , general secretary of the Romanian Ministry of Teaching and multiple times senator, with conservative political views. Tocilescu is one of the first Romanian historians who focused on the study of civilizations in ancient Dacia. As a folklorist he collaborated on the publication of a folkloristics compendium.
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Helmuth Theodor Bossert
1889 - 1961 (72 years)
Helmuth Theodor Bossert was a German art historian, philologist and archaeologist. He is best known for his excavations of the Hittite fortress city at Karatepe, Turkey, and the discovery of bilingual inscriptions, which enabled the translation of Hittite hieroglyphs.
Go to Profile#2927
Gitel Steed
1914 - 1977 (63 years)
Gitel Poznanski Steed was an American cultural anthropologist known for her research in India 1950–52 involving ethnological work in three villages to study the complex detail of their social structure. She supplemented her research with thousands of ethnological photographs of the individuals and groups studied, the quality of which was recognised by Edward Steichen. She experienced chronic illnesses after her return from the field, but nevertheless completed publications and many lectures but did not survive to finish a book The Human Career in Village India which was to integrate and uni...
Go to Profile#2928
Hugo Winckler
1863 - 1913 (50 years)
Hugo Winckler was a German archaeologist and historian who uncovered the capital of the Hittite Empire at Boğazkale, Turkey. A student of the languages of the ancient Middle East, he wrote extensively on Assyrian cuneiform and the Old Testament, compiled a history of Babylonia and Assyrian that was published in 1891, and translated both the Code of Hammurabi and the Amarna letters. In 1904, he was appointed professor of Oriental languages at the University of Berlin.
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Albert Jenks
1869 - 1953 (84 years)
Albert Ernest Jenks was an American anthropologist and a professor at the University of Minnesota. He was known for his work in historical anthropological studies on rice cultivation, the development of hominids, and his identification of the skeletal remains of Minnesota Woman, 8,000-year old human remains found near Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. He joined the United States Bureau of Ethnology in 1901 and served in the U.S. colonial government of the Philippines from 1902 to 1905. In this capacity, he was involved in the exhibition of Bontoc Igorot people at the 1904 Louisiana Universal Exposition in St.
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Franz Boll
1867 - 1924 (57 years)
Franz Boll was a German scholar and contemporary of Cumont. He became Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Heidelberg. He is known for his editorial and biographical work on Claudius Ptolemy. He also wrote on astrology. He is quoted as saying "Astrology wants to be religion and science at the same time; that marks its essence", and "Mankind measures time using the stars. Lay people, whose knowledge is based on belief, rather than science, say: "The course of the stars determines Time," and from this, religious people drifts the saying that "Heaven guides everything on Earth."...
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Luis E. Valcárcel
1891 - 1987 (96 years)
Luis Eduardo Valcárcel Vizcarra was a Peruvian historian, anthropologist, writer and activist. He was a researcher of pre-Hispanic Peru and one of the protagonists of the Indigenismo movement. He is considered the father of Peruvian anthropology, and his work focused on two fundamental axes: the revaluation of the Inca Empire and the vindication of the Andean culture. He brought awareness to the continuity that links the peasant of the Andes with the man of the Tahuantinsuyu.
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Charles Edward Borden
1905 - 1978 (73 years)
Charles Edward Borden; also Carl Borden; was an American- born Canadian professor of archaeology at the University of British Columbia and the author of seminal works on archaeology, pre-history and pre-contact history. He was of German descent. The Canadian Archaeological Association referred to him as the grandfather of archaeology in British Columbia and especially regarding prehistory and early history and rendered outstanding services to British Columbia. The Borden System was used on all archaeological sites. Borden deemed the Milliken site in the Fraser Canyon, with finds dating back a...
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Luigi Pernier
1874 - 1937 (63 years)
Luigi Pernier was an Italian archaeologist and academic now best known for his discovery of the Disc of Phaistos. Career Pernier came from a wealthy family—his father Giuseppe was a rich landowner of French descent and his mother Agnese Romanini belonged to an aristocratic family. He attended the Liceo Ginnasio "Ennio Quirino Visconti" before graduating in Letters at the University of Rome in 1897, with Rodolfo Lanciani as his supervisor. He specialised at the Scuola di Archeologia di Roma, gaining a diploma in 1901, after spending periods studying in Crete at the Missione Archeologica Ita...
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Ahmed Fakhry
1905 - 1973 (68 years)
Ahmed Fakhry was an Egyptian archaeologist who worked in the Western desert of Egypt , and also in the necropolis at Dahshur. Bibliography Siwa Oasis, Cairo, Egypt, American University in Cairo Press 1990Bahriyah and Farafra, Cairo, American University in Cairo Press 2003An archaeological journey to Yemen, Bahria OasisThe Bent pyramid of Dahshûr / by Ahmed Fakhry ; with papers by Hasan Mostafa and Herbert RickeIntiṣār al-ḥaḍārah : tārīkh al-Sharq al-qadīm / bi-qalam Zhayms Hanrī Baristid ; naqalahu ilá al-ʻArabīyah Aḥmad FakhrīThe Inscriptions of the Amethyst Quarries at Wadi el HudiThe monu...
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Gudmund Hatt
1884 - 1960 (76 years)
Professor Aage Gudmund Hatt was a Danish archaeologist and cultural geographer. He was a professor of cultural geography at the University of Copenhagen from 1929 through 1947. Also an ethnologist, he was the first person to systematically inventory cultural similarities and differences amongst northern peoples.
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Boris Kuftin
1892 - 1953 (61 years)
Boris Alekseevich Kuftin was a Soviet archaeologist and ethnographer. From 1933 to 1953, he worked in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR. In the 1930s, he discovered the Trialeti culture; and in 1940, he coined the term Kura-Araxes. He participated in the South Turkmenistan Complex Archaeological Expedition in the 1940s-1950s.
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Robert Gordon Latham
1812 - 1888 (76 years)
Robert Gordon Latham FRS was an English ethnologist and philologist. Early life The eldest son of Thomas Latham, vicar of Billingborough, Lincolnshire, he was born there on 24 March 1812. He entered Eton College in 1819, and in 1829 went on to King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1832, and was soon afterwards elected a Fellow.
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Alfred von Domaszewski
1856 - 1927 (71 years)
Alfred von Domaszewski was an Austrian historian born in Timișoara in the Habsburg monarchy. He received his education in Vienna, and following graduation remained in Vienna as a secondary school teacher. In 1884 he began work as an assistant at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. In 1887 he became an associate professor of ancient history at the University of Heidelberg, where in 1890 he attained full professorship. One of his better known students was historian Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz .
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Arthur Frothingham
1859 - 1923 (64 years)
Arthur Lincoln Frothingham, Jr. was an early professor of art history at Princeton University and an archaeologist. Biography Frothingham was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and came from a wealthy family background, which allowed him to study languages at the Catholic Seminary of San Apollinare in Rome and the Royal University of Rome between 1868 and 1881. In 1882, he began teaching Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins University. He completed his doctorate in Germany, at the University of Leipzig in 1883, and he married Helen Bulkley Post. In 1884, he was secretary of the newly founded Archa...
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Bedřich Hrozný
1879 - 1952 (73 years)
Bedřich Hrozný , also known as , was a Czech orientalist and linguist. He contributed to the decipherment of the ancient Hittite language, identified it as an Indo-European language, and laid the groundwork for the development of Hittitology.
Go to Profile#2941
Bertha Parker Pallan
1907 - 1978 (71 years)
Bertha Pallan Thurston Cody was an American archaeologist, working as an assistant in archaeology at the Southwest Museum. She was also married to actor Iron Eyes Cody. She is thought to be the first Native American female archaeologist, of Abenaki and Seneca descent.
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Piotr Ignacy Bieńkowski
1865 - 1925 (60 years)
Piotr Ignacy Bieńkowski was a Polish classical scholar and archaeologist, professor of Jagiellonian University. Bieńkowski studied classical philology and history at the University of Lwów and University of Berlin . He continued his studies in Vienna, Rome and Athens, habilitation at the University of Kraków.
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Ernst Pfuhl
1876 - 1940 (64 years)
Ernst Pfuhl was a German-Swiss classical archaeologist and art historian. He was the son of sculptor Johannes Pfuhl and a son-in-law to art dealer Athanasios Rhousopoulos . Biography He studied under Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff at the University of Berlin, and later on, performed excavations at the necropolis at Thera as an assistant to Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen. In 1905 he received his habilitation at the University of Göttingen, and in 1911, became a "full professor" at the University of Basel. At Basel he founded the in 1912. He remained at Basel until his death in 1940, his successor being Karl Schefold.
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Yigael Yadin
1917 - 1984 (67 years)
Yigael Yadin was an Israeli archeologist, soldier and politician. He was the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces and Deputy Prime Minister from 1977 to 1981. Biography Yigael Sukenik was born in Ottoman Palestine to archaeologist Eleazar Sukenik and his wife Hasya Sukenik-Feinsold, a teacher and women's rights activist.
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Taha Baqir
1912 - 1984 (72 years)
Taha Baqir was an Iraqi Assyriologist, author, cuneiformist, linguist, historian, and former curator of the National Museum of Iraq. Baqir is considered one of Iraq's most eminent archaeologists. Among the works he is remembered for are his Akkadian to Arabic translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, his decipherment of Babylonian mathematical tablets, his Akkadian law code discoveries, and his excavations of ancient Babylonian and Sumerian sites; including the ancient Sumerian city of Shaduppum in Baghdad.
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Charles Conrad Abbott
1843 - 1919 (76 years)
Charles Conrad Abbott was an American archaeologist and naturalist. Biography Abbott was born at Trenton, New Jersey, son of Timothy and Susan Abbott; grandson of Joseph and Anne Abbott, and a descendant of John and Anne Abbott, settlers, from England, in New Jersey in 1684. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. During the American Civil War, he served as a surgeon in the Union Army. He received his M.D. degree from University of Pennsylvania in 1865, but never entered into the practice of the profession.
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Herman Pontzer
Herman Pontzer is an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University, where he is associate professor of evolutionary anthropology and global health. He is best known for his research into human bioenergetics.
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Pietro Romanelli
1889 - 1981 (92 years)
Pietro Romanèlli was an Italian archaeologist. Born in Rome, he carried out excavations at Tarquinia, Ostia Antica, the Palatine Hill in Rome, at the Forum Romanum and at Leptis Magna in Libya. Among his students was the Roman archaeologist and researcher at Ostia Antica Maria Floriani Squarciapino .
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Lewis B. Paton
1864 - 1932 (68 years)
Lewis Bayles Paton was an American biblical scholar, archaeologist and historian. He was a professor at the Hartford Theological Seminary for many years, and a well known authority on Old Testament exegesis.
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Amedeo Maiuri
1886 - 1963 (77 years)
Amedeo Maiuri was an Italian archaeologist, famous for his archaeological investigations of the Roman city of Pompeii which was destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August of AD 79. He was the first to conduct systematic scientific excavations, analysis and publication at Pompeii and other sites around Vesuvius.
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