Socio-cultural anthropology emerged a century earlier than has previously been assumed. It originated in the field in Siberia and was developed in academic centers in G_ttingen and Vienna during the eighteenth century. German-speaking historians such as Gerhard Friedrich M_ller, August Ludwig Schl_zer, Johann Christoph Gatterer and Adam Franz Koll_r invented and practiced a science of peoples designated as V_lker-Beschreibung (1740), ethnographia (1767-71), V_lkerkunde (1771-75) and ethnologia (1781-83). With these concepts, they took part in an ethnological discourse, a way of thinking and communicating about peoples and nations. Ethnology was developed alongside (physical or philosophical) Anthropologie, partly in oppostion and partly in dialogue. Ethnology originated from history under the influence of historical linguistics and was developed as a complement to (physical and social) geography, social philosophy and (physical or philosophical) anthropology. These Germ an-speaking scholars systematized the ethnological way of thinking in the multicultural Russian, German, and Austrian Empires. The German tradition influenced scholars in Russia, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, and Bohemia, as well as in France, the United States, and Great Britain. Historiography has largely ignored these developments. To correct this omission, the early actors are introduced and their work is placed in a historical, academic, and political context.LEI Universiteit LeidenNoordman Timber & Plywood, LeidenFSW - Global Connections --- Ou
