E. B. Tylor

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor ( October 2 1832 – January 2 1917 ), the English Anthropologist , was born at Camberwell , London , the son of Joseph Tylor and Harriet Skipper. Alfred Tylor , the Geologist , was an elder brother.

His parents were members of the Society Of Friends , at one of whose schools, at Grove House, Tottenham , he was educated. In 1848 he entered his father's business (J. Tylor and Sons, Brassfounders ) in London, but at about the age of twenty he was threatened with consumption and forced to abandon business. During 1855 - 1856 he travelled in the United States Of America . Proceeding in 1856 to Cuba , he met Henry Christy the Ethnologist , with whom he visited Mexico . Tylor's association with Christy greatly stimulated his awakening interest in Anthropology , and his visit to Mexico, with its rich prehistoric remains, led him to make a systematic study of the science. Many of his theories based on unilineal evolution, considered racist in modern times, have been abandoned.

In 1858 Tylor married Anna Fox.

While on a visit to Tylor published a smaller and more popular handbook on anthropology.

In 1871 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society , and in 1875 received the honorary degree of Doctor Of Civil Laws from the University Of Oxford . He was appointed Keeper of the University Museum at Oxford in 1883 , and Reader in Anthropology in 1884 . In 1888 he was appointed first Gifford Lecturer at the University Of Aberdeen . In 1896 he became Professor of Anthropology at Oxford and was knighted in 1912 .

EXTERNAL LINKS

Information About

E. B. Tylor