Antonio Peñafiel Berruecos (1839–1922) was a

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

medical doctor, scientist and scholar who participated in founding the

National Institute of Statistics and Geography The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI by its name in es, Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática) is an autonomous agency of the Mexican Government dedicated to coordinate the National System of Stat ...

, and in studying Mexico's

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

history and in documenting

Native American languages Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...

. Born in

Atotonilco el Grande Atotonilco El Grande is a town and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to ...

Hidalgo Hidalgo may refer to: People * Hidalgo (nobility), members of the Spanish nobility * Hidalgo (surname) Places Mexico * Hidalgo (state), in central Mexico * Hidalgo, Coahuila, a town in the north Mexican state of Coahuila * Hidalgo, Nuevo Le� ...

, he entered medical school. From 1873 to 1875 he was a member of national congress representing the state of

. From 1882 to 1910 he was director of the '' Dirección General de Estadísticas'' (DGE), the Mexican bureau of statistics. In 1895 he directed the first Mexican national census. He was also a founding member of the Mexican Society for Natural History. He published many of the

ethnohistorical Ethnohistory is the study of cultures and indigenous peoples customs by examining historical records as well as other sources of information on their lives and history. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may n ...

sources about Mexico's indigenous cultures, and also published his own studies of Mexican placenames. He also published an analysis of the potable water of the Basin of Mexico including chemical analyses. He was elected as a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1886.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peñafiel, Antonio 1839 births 1922 deaths Mexican Mesoamericanists 19th-century Mesoamericanists Mexican scientists Members of the American Philosophical Society