Rudolf Virchow: Sämtliche Werke

Like all the volumes in this edition, which contain the 1200 or so essays which Virchow wrote purely on prehistory (not including essays on the related fields of anthropology and ethnology), volume 50.2 presents a good cross-section of Virchow’s huge range of interests in the area of prehistory and early history, enabling the reader to discover the well-known special interests to which he returned again and again in his work (hill-forts, the Slavic question, the Lausitz culture with its beautifully decorated bossed urns and the Pomeranian face urns). As well as the usual prehistoric work with individual finds, burial-sites and excavation reports, the volume frequently mentions such famous names as Schliemann or the Emperor of Brazil. Virchow was adroit at drawing such men into his general conception of a wide foundation for the new science. He also succeeded in using daily papers to communicate current research findings which were of interest to the general reading public. He activated the ministerial bureaucracy in Berlin.