Founded in 1908 by Fabio Frassetto in connection with the new university course and moved in 1933 to its current location, it primarily documents the evolution of the human species starting from the Primates, in a journey back in time from the appearance of Australopithecines to the modern forms of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. It is divided into three sections: Paleoanthropology and Prehistory, Tools and Methods of Anthropometry, Current Human Populations and Adaptation. The exhibition path opens with a series of plaster human heads and often polychrome facial casts of different human races. Among these, the collection made between 1927 and ’32 by the Florentine anthropologist Lido Cipriani on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society as a teaching aid for the Biology of Races course stands out. Of notable interest is the set of cranial casts displayed to document ethnic deformations practiced by some populations for aesthetic, ritual, or social purposes. The section is accompanied by micro-dioramas on aspects of human species adaptation to environmental conditions. Among the tools used by the Institute of Anthropology during the twentieth century for studies in osteometry, physiology, and human morphology, there are various instruments for measuring vision, skin sensitivity, skeleton size, Frassetto’s anthropometer, tablets and color scales for evaluating eye, skin, and hair colors. The heart of the exhibition path consists of an itinerary that retraces the stages of hominid evolution, relating them to the physical development of humans, paleoenvironmental characteristics, and evidence of material culture. The review ends with a series of osteological remains from the Neolithic to Roman age. Of local interest is the documentation related to the sites of Gaibola Cave, Farneto Cave and Underrock, and some Villanovan or Felsinean phase burials found in the metropolitan area of Bologna.
Information about Anthropology Museum
Via Selmi, 3,
40121 Bologna (Bologna)
0512094196
maria.belcastro@unibo.it
https://ww.sma.unibo.it/antropologia
Source: MIBACT
