Eduard Hahn

Background

Eduard Hahn was born on August 7, 1856 in in Lübeck.

Education

He studied medicine and later natural sciences at the universities of Jena, Greifswald and Leipzig since 1877.

Career

Although Hahn held no teaching position until after 1910, he lectured at the University of Berlin and the Agricultural Academy.

Until his death he worked in Berlin as a lecturer, since 1921 with the title of an extraordinary professor.

In numerous publications Hahn has tried to explain the origin of the early forms of agriculture and the domestication of the domestic animals.

His publications on the domestication of animals were influential in molding anthropological thought. Rejecting the traditional evolutionary sequence of hunting to herding to farming, he pointed out that cultivation was practiced by primitive peoples who had no domestic animals; he introduced the terms "hoe culture, " referring to primitive cultivation, in contrast to "plow culture, " which used draft animals. Hahn believed that animals were first domesticated for nonpractical use, a theory which receives some support in parts of Southeast Asia and Indonesia where animals are kept chiefly for religious sacrifice. He held that animals were domesticated in only a few centers, from which the idea of domestication spread; that once a technique had been developed for one animal, it was transferred to other animals. Later evidence has confirmed these theories; the idea of domestication, as well as that of using animals for draft, spread from Mesopotamia northward, where the horse when first domesticated was used for draft in imitation of the ox. Although Hahn's writings, particularly in his later years, were larded with dogmatic and irrelevant opinions on subjects ranging from priestly celibacy to socialism, much of his thinking on economic origins was sound and stimulating.

Achievements

• Eduard Hahn introduced the terms "hoe culture, " referring to primitive cultivation, in contrast to "plow culture, " which used draft animals.
  
  His most important scientific publication is the book " The Pets and their Relations with the Economy of Man " published in 1896.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Geheimmittel und Spezialitaeten: mit Angabe ihrer Zusammensetzung und ihres Wertes (German Edition)

    (Der Autor und Apotheker Eduard Hahn hat im vorliegenden B...)

  • Pharmacognostische Untersuchung Der Adstringens-Rinden (German Edition)

    (Pharmacognostische Untersuchung der Adstringens-Rinden - ...)

  • Die Entstehung der Pflugkultur (Unsres Ackerbaus) (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

    (Excerpt from Die Entstehung der Pflugkultur (Unsres Acker...)

  • Das Alter der wirtschaftlichen Kultur der Menschheit: ein Rückblick und ein Ausblick (German Edition)

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

  • Die Wichtigsten Der Bis Jetzt Bekannten Geheimmittel Und Specialitaten Mit Angabe Ihrer Zusammensetzung Und Ihres Werthes (German Edition)

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Views

Rejecting the traditional evolutionary sequence of hunting to herding to farming, he pointed out that cultivation was practiced by primitive peoples who had no domestic animals.

Hahn believed that animals were first domesticated for nonpractical use, a theory which receives some support in parts of Southeast Asia and Indonesia where animals are kept chiefly for religious sacrifice.

References

• Landwirtschaftliche Jahrbücher; Volume 6