Angela von den Driesch (11 July 1934 – 4 January 2012) was a German

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and

veterinarian A veterinarian (vet), also known as a veterinary surgeon or veterinary physician, is a medical professional who practices veterinary medicine. They manage a wide range of health conditions and injuries in non-human animals. Along with this, vet ...

. She was a professor and former director of the ''Institut für Paläoanatomie, Domestikationsforschung und Geschichte der Tiermedizin'' at the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

Education and career

Angela Felicitas Karpf was born on 11 July 1934 in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

but her family moved to

Tegernsee Tegernsee is a town in the Miesbach district of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the shore of Lake Tegernsee, which is 747 m (2,451 ft) above sea level. A spa town, it is surrounded by an alpine landscape of Upper Bavaria, and has an e ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

after the Second World War. She studied in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

and

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

, first reading

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...

, then

veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in animals. Along with this, it deals with animal rearing, husbandry, breeding, research on nutri ...

. She was awarded the degree of Doctor Medicinae Veterinariae by

in 1963 for her thesis on the

lymphatic system The lymphatic system, or lymphoid system, is an organ system in vertebrates that is part of the immune system, and complementary to the circulatory system. It consists of a large network of lymphatic vessels, lymph nodes, lymphatic or lymphoid o ...

of the

testicle A testicle or testis (plural testes) is the male reproductive gland or gonad in all bilaterians, including humans. It is homologous to the female ovary. The functions of the testes are to produce both sperm and androgens, primarily testostero ...

. She married Karl von den Driesch in 1966. In 1965, Angela von den Driesch joined Munich's newly founded ''Institut für Paläoanatomie, Domestikationsforschung und Geschichte der Tiermedizin'' (Institute for Palaeoanatomy, Domestication Research and the History of Veterinary Medicine), directed by Joachim Boessneck. She completed her

habilitation thesis Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

, on the

osteoarchaeology The term bioarchaeology has been attributed to British archaeologist Grahame Clark who, in 1972, defined it as the study of animal and human bones from archaeological sites. Redefined in 1977 by Jane Buikstra, bioarchaeology in the United States no ...

of the Iberian

Peninsula A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all ...

, in 1970. She was made a university professor in 1978 and succeeded Boessnick as the director of the Institute for Palaeoanatomy in 1991. On her retirement in 1999, she managed to persuade the university not to close the institute, and continues as the only combined ' in palaeoanatomy and veterinary history in Germany.

Legacy

A ''

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

'' in von den Driesch's honour, ''Historia animalium ex ossibus'', was edited by Cornelia Becker, Henriette Manhart, Joris Peters, and Jörg Schibler and published in 1999. Thirty-seven papers were contributed in German, English and French. On her death, an international symposium in her memory was held at

Koç University Koç University ( tr, Koç Üniversitesi) is a non-profit private university in Istanbul, Turkey. It started education in temporary buildings in İstinye in 1993, and moved to its current Rumelifeneri campus near Sarıyer in 2000. Koç Universit ...

in Istanbul. Von den Driesch began building a

reference collection A reference collection is a collecting, collection of objects maintained for the purpose of study and authentication. Reference collections are generally large undertakings maintained by institutions; instead of having a single representative of e ...

of vertebrate bones when she joined the Institute for Palaeoanatomy in the 1960s, which grew to become one of the largest osteological collections in the world. At the time of her death in 2012, it contained over 20,000 specimens representing 2,700 taxa. When she retired in 1999, von den Driesch arranged for the collection to be given to the Bavarian state. It was later merged with the state anthropological collection and is now known as the Bavarian State Collection for Anthropology and Palaeoanatomy (''Staatssammlung für Anthropologie und Paläoanatomie'').

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Driesch, Angela von den 1934 births Archaeologists from Dresden People from Miesbach (district) Zooarchaeologists Archaeologists of the Near East German women archaeologists German veterinarians Women veterinarians Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich 2012 deaths