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Carleton Stevens Coon (June 23, 1904 – June 3, 1981) was an American
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...
. A professor of anthropology at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
, lecturer and professor at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
, he was president of the
American Association of Physical Anthropologists The American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA) is an international professional society of biological anthropologists, based in the United States. The organization publishes the ''American Journal of Physical Anthropology'', a pe ...
. Coon's theories on race were widely disputed in his lifetime and are considered
pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...
in modern anthropology.


Early life and education

Carleton Stevens Coon was born in
Wakefield, Massachusetts Wakefield is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, incorporated in 1812 and located about north-northwest of Downtown Boston. Wakefield's population was 27,090 at the 2020 census. Wakefield offer ...
on June 23, 1904. His parents were John Lewis Coon, a cotton factor, and Bessie Carleton. His family had
Cornish American Cornish Americans ( kw, Amerikanyon gernewek) are Americans who describe themselves as having Cornish ancestry, an ethnic group of Brittonic Celts native to Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, part of England in the United Kingdom. Although Cornis ...
roots and two of his ancestors fought in the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
. As a child, he listened to his grandfather's stories of the war and of traveling in the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
, and accompanied his father on business trips to Egypt, inspiring an early interest in
Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native relig ...
. He initially attended Wakefield High School, but was expelled after breaking a water pipe and flooding the school's basement, after which he went to
Phillips Academy ("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness , address = 180 Main Street , city = Andover, Massachusetts, Andover , stat ...
. Coon was a precocious student, learning to read
Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1, ...
at an early age and excelling at
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
. Wakefield was an affluent and almost exclusively
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White ...
town. Coon's biographer,
William W. Howells William White Howells (November 27, 1908 – December 20, 2005) was a professor of anthropology at Harvard University. Howells, grandson of the novelist William Dean Howells, was born in New York City, the son of John Mead Howells, the architec ...
, noted that his "only apparent awareness of ethnicity" was in childhood fights with his
Irish American , image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png , image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state , caption = Notable Irish Americans , population = 36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
neighbours. Coon himself claimed that "both anti-Semitism and racism were unknown to me before I left home at the age of fifteen, and zero to fifteen are formative years." Intending to study Egyptology, Coon enrolled at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
and was able to obtain a place on a graduate course with
George Andrew Reisner George Andrew Reisner Jr. (November 5, 1867 – June 6, 1942) was an American archaeologist of Ancient Egypt, Nubia and Palestine. Biography Reisner was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His parents were George Andrew Reisner I and Mary Elizabeth ...
based on his knowledge of hieroglyphic. He also studied
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and English composition under
Charles Townsend Copeland Charles Townsend Copeland (April 27, 1860 – July 24, 1952) was a professor, poet, and writer. He graduated from Harvard University and spent much of his time as a mentor at Harvard, where he served in several posts, including Boylston Profess ...
. However he changed his focus to
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
after taking a course with
Earnest Hooton Earnest Albert Hooton (November 20, 1887 – May 3, 1954) was an American physical anthropologist known for his work on racial classification and his popular writings such as the book ''Up From The Ape''. Hooton sat on the Committee on the Negro, ...
, inspired by his lectures on the
Berbers , image = File:Berber_flag.svg , caption = The Berber ethnic flag , population = 36 million , region1 = Morocco , pop1 = 14 million to 18 million , region2 = Algeria , pop2 ...
of the Moroccan
Rif The Rif or Riff (, ), also called Rif Mountains, is a geographic region in northern Morocco. This mountainous and fertile area is bordered by Cape Spartel and Tangier to the west, by Berkane and the Moulouya River to the east, by the Mediterrane ...
. Coon obtained his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1925 and immediately embarked on graduate studies in anthropology. He conducted his dissertation fieldwork in the Rif in 1925, which was politically unsettled after a rebellion of the local populace against the Spanish, and was awarded his PhD in 1928. Coon was motivated to study the Rif by the puzzle of the "light-skinned" Riffians' presence in Africa. Throughout much of his fieldwork, he relied on his local informant Mohammed Limnibhy, and even arranged for Limnibhy to live with him in Cambridge from 1928 to 1929.


Academic career

After obtaining his PhD, Coon returned to Harvard as a lecturer and later a professor. In 1931 he published his dissertation as the "definitive monograph" of the Rif Berber; studied
Albanians The Albanians (; sq, Shqiptarët ) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Ser ...
from 1920 to 1930; traveled to
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
in 1933; and in worked in Arabia, North Africa and the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
from 1925 to 1939. Coon left Harvard to take up a position at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
in 1948. Throughout the 1950s he produced academic papers, as well as many popular books for the general reader, the most notable being ''The Story of Man'' (1954). During his years at Penn in the 1950s, he sometimes appeared on the television program called ''What in the World?'', a game-show produced by the
Penn Museum The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology—commonly known as the Penn Museum—is an archaeology and anthropology museum at the University of Pennsylvania. It is located on Penn's campus in the University City neigh ...
, and hosted by its director,
Froelich Rainey Froelich Gladstone Rainey (June 18, 1907 – October 11, 1992) was an American anthropologist and Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology from 1947 to 1977. Under his leadership, the Penn Museum announced ...
, in which a panel of experts tried to identify an object in the museum's collection. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his wartime services and the Viking Medal in Physical Anthropology in 1952. He was also named a Membre D'Honneur of the Association de la Libération française du 8 novembre 1942. From 1948 to the early 1960s, he was the Curator of Ethnology at the University Museum of Philadelphia.


Military career

Coon wrote widely for a general audience like his mentor
Earnest Hooton Earnest Albert Hooton (November 20, 1887 – May 3, 1954) was an American physical anthropologist known for his work on racial classification and his popular writings such as the book ''Up From The Ape''. Hooton sat on the Committee on the Negro, ...
. Coon published ''The Riffians'', ''Flesh of the Wild Ox'', ''Measuring Ethiopia'', and ''A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent''. ''A North Africa Story'' was an account of his work in North Africa during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, which involved espionage and the smuggling of arms to French resistance groups in German-occupied
Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...
under the guise of anthropological fieldwork. During that time, Coon was affiliated with the United States
Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...
, the forerunner to the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
. Coon served as a mentor to another Harvard-educated OSS agent and anthropologist who embraced anthropometry (measuring features of the human body, such as crania and nose sizes) as a means asserting racial types and categories. This was Lloyd Cabot Briggs, author of ''Living Races of the Sahara Desert'' (1958) and later of ''No More for Ever: A Saharan Jewish Town (1962)'' about the Jews of the Mzab region of the Algerian Sahara, which he wrote with Norina Lami Guède (née Maria Esterina Giovanni). The historian Sarah Abreyava Stein (who argued that Guede had done most of the research) noted that Briggs and Coon corresponded during the writing of ''No More for Ever'', joking, for example, about the genital depilation customs of Jewish women in Ghardaïa. After the war, Coon returned to Harvard, but retained ties to the OSS and its successor the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA). He was a scientific consultant to the CIA from 1948 to 1950, and in 1945 wrote an influential paper that argued that the United States should continue the use of wartime intelligence agencies to maintain an "Invisible Empire" in the postwar period. In 1956–57, he worked for the
Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...
as a photographer.


Racial theories

Before World War II, Coon's work on race "fit comfortably into the old physical anthropology", describing the racial
types Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type In computer science and computer programming, a data type (or simply type) is a set of possible values and a set of allo ...
supposedly present in human populations based on visible physical characteristics. He explicitly rejected any specific definition of race and used the concept to describe both highly specific groupings of people and continent-spanning racial types. In ''The Races of Europe'' (1939), for example, an update of William Z. Ripley's 1899 book of the same title, he distinguished between at least four racial types and sub-types of
Jewish people Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, but also maintained that there existed a single, primordial Jewish race, characterised by a
Jewish nose Jewish nose or Jew's nose is a usually exaggerated ethnic stereotype that refers to a hooked nose with a convex nasal bridge and a downward turn of the tip of the nose.. The 'Jewish nose' was singled out as a hostile caricature of Jews in mid-1 ...
and other physical features that together form "a quality of looking Jewish". In these early works Coon alluded to essential, "pure" racial types that produced the specific races he observed through
hybridization Hybridization (or hybridisation) may refer to: *Hybridization (biology), the process of combining different varieties of organisms to create a hybrid *Orbital hybridization, in chemistry, the mixing of atomic orbitals into new hybrid orbitals *Nu ...
, but did not attempt to explain how or where these types arose. The immediate post-war period marked a decisive break in Coon's work on race as the conventional, typological approach was challenged by the "new physical anthropology". Led by Coon's former classmate Sherwood Washburn, this was a movement to shift the field away from description and classification and towards an understanding of human variability grounded in the
modern synthesis Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely: * Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and ...
of
biological evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation t ...
and
population genetics Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and po ...
. For some anthropologists, including
Ashley Montagu Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu (June 28, 1905November 26, 1999) — born Israel Ehrenberg — was a British-American anthropologist who popularized the study of topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. He ...
and later Washburn himself, the new physical anthropology necessitated the wholesale rejection of race as a scientific category. In contrast, in ''Races: A Study in the Problem of Race Formation in Man'' (1950), Coon, together with his former student Stanley Garn and Joseph Birdsell, attempted to reconcile the race concept with the new physical anthropology's emphasis on genetics and adaptation. This was followed by Coon's ''magnum opus'', ''The Origin of Races'' (1962), which put forward a theory of the origins of essential racial types, however distinct from what is described by the model of
multiregional evolution The multiregional hypothesis, multiregional evolution (MRE), or polycentric hypothesis is a scientific model that provides an alternative explanation to the more widely accepted "Out of Africa" model of monogenesis for the pattern of human evoluti ...
(MRE) as it drastically understates the role played by
gene flow In population genetics, gene flow (also known as gene migration or geneflow and allele flow) is the transfer of genetic material from one population to another. If the rate of gene flow is high enough, then two populations will have equivalent a ...
(whereas MRE requires it). Coon concluded that sometimes different racial types annihilated other types, while in other instances warfare and/or settlement led to the partial displacement of racial types. He asserted that Europe was the refined product of a long history of racial progression. He also posited that historically "different strains in one population have showed differential survival values and often one has reemerged at the expense of others (in Europeans)", in ''The Races of Europe, The White Race and the New World'' (1939). Coon suggested that the "maximum survival" of the European racial type was increased by the replacement of the indigenous peoples of the New World. He stated the history of the White race to have involved "racial survivals" of White subraces.


Racial origins

Coon first modified Franz Weidenreich's polycentric (or multiregional) theory of the origin of races. The Weidenreich Theory states that human races have evolved independently in the Old World from
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor ...
to Homo sapiens sapiens, while at the same time there was gene flow between the various populations. Coon held a similar belief that modern humans, ''Homo sapiens'', arose separately in five different places from
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor ...
, "as each subspecies, living in its own territory, passed a critical threshold from a more brutal to a more ''sapient'' state", but unlike Weidenreich stressed gene flow far less. Coon's modified form of the Weidenreich Theory is sometimes referred to as the Candelabra Hypothesis. A misunderstanding however has led some to believe that Coon supported parallel evolution or
polygenism Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no ...
; this is not true since Coon's evolution model still allows for gene-flow, although he did not stress it. In his 1962 book, ''The Origin of Races'', Coon theorized that some races reached the
Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture ...
stage in evolution before others, resulting in the higher degree of civilization among some races. He had continued his theory of five races. He considered both what he called the
Mongoloid race Mongoloid () is an obsolete racial grouping of various peoples indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race. In the past, other term ...
and the
Caucasoid race The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid or Europid, Europoid) is an obsolete racial classification of human beings based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. The ''Caucasian race'' was historically regarded as a biological taxon which, d ...
had individuals who had adapted to crowding through evolution of the endocrine system, which made them more successful in the modern world of civilization. This can be found after page 370, in the illustrative serie of number XXXII of The Origin of Races. Coon contrasted a picture of an
Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
with one of a Chinese professor. His caption "The Alpha and the Omega" was used to demonstrate his research that brain size was positively correlated with intelligence. By this he meant that the Caucasoid and Mongoloid races had evolved more in their separate areas after they had left Africa in a primitive form. He also believed, "The earliest Homo sapiens known, as represented by several examples from Europe and Africa, was an ancestral long-headed white man of short stature and moderately great brain size."


Races in the Indian sub-continent

Coon's understanding of racial typology and diversity within the Indian sub-continent changed over time. In ''The Races of Europe'', he regarded the so-called "Veddoids" of India ("tribal" Indians, or "Adivasi") as closely related to other peoples in the South-Pacific ("Australoids"), and he also believed that this supposed human lineage (the "Australoids") was an important genetic substratum in Southern India. As for the north of the sub-continent, it was an extension of the Caucasoid range. By the time Coon coauthored ''The Living Races of Man'', he thought that India's Adivasis were an ancient Caucasoid-Australoid mix who tended to be more Caucasoid than Australoid (with great variability), that the Dravidian peoples of Southern India were simply Caucasoid, and that the north of the sub-continent was also Caucasoid. In short, the Indian sub-continent (North and South) is "the easternmost outpost of the Caucasoid racial region". Underlying all of this was Coon's typological view of human history and biological variation, a way of thinking that is not taken seriously today by most anthropologists/biologists.


Debate on race

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and changing social attitudes challenged racial theories like Coon's that had been used by segregationists to justify discrimination and depriving people of civil rights. In 1961, Coon's cousin
Carleton Putnam Carleton Putnam (December 19, 1901 – March 5, 1998) was an American businessman and writer who was an advocate for racial segregation. He graduated from Princeton University in 1924 and received a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Columbia Law S ...
, wrote ''Race and Reason: A Yankee View'', arguing a scientific basis for
white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White ...
and the continuation of
racial segregation in the United States In the United States, racial segregation is the systematic separation of facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation on racial grounds. The term is mainly used in reference to the legally ...
. After the book was made required reading for high school students in Louisiana, the
American Association of Physical Anthropologists The American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA) is an international professional society of biological anthropologists, based in the United States. The organization publishes the ''American Journal of Physical Anthropology'', a pe ...
(AAPA) passed a resolution condemning it. Coon, who had corresponded with Putnam about the book as he was writing it, and chaired the meeting of the AAPA in which the resolution was passed, resigned in protest, criticizing the resolution as scientifically irresponsible and a violation of free speech. Later, he claimed to have asked how many of those present at the meeting had read the book, and that only one hand was raised. Coon published ''The Origin of Races'' in 1962. In its "Introduction", he described the book as part of the outcome of his project he conceived (in light of his work on ''The Races of Europe'') around the end of 1956, for a work to be titled along the lines of ''Races of the World''. He said that since 1959 he had proceeded with the intention to follow ''The Origin of Races'' with a sequel, so the two would jointly fulfill the goals of the original project.Carleton S. Coon, ''The Origin of Races'', Knopf, 1962, p. vii (He indeed published ''The Living Races of Man'' in 1965.) The book asserted that the human species divided into five races before it had evolved into ''Homo sapiens''. Further, he suggested that the races evolved into ''Homo sapiens'' at different times. It was not well received. The field of anthropology was moving rapidly from theories of race typology, and ''The Origin of Races'' was widely castigated by his peers in anthropology as supporting racist ideas with outmoded theory and notions which had long since been repudiated by modern science. One of his harshest critics,
Theodore Dobzhansky Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky (russian: Феодо́сий Григо́рьевич Добржа́нский; uk, Теодо́сій Григо́рович Добржа́нський; January 25, 1900 – December 18, 1975) was a prominent ...
, scorned it as providing "grist for racist mills". The dispute that followed the publication of ''The Origin of Races'' was personal as well as academic. Coon had known
Ashley Montagu Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu (June 28, 1905November 26, 1999) — born Israel Ehrenberg — was a British-American anthropologist who popularized the study of topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. He ...
and Dobzhansky for decades and the three men often corresponded and wrote positive reviews of each other's work before 1962. Their vociferous criticism of ''Origins'' severed their friendship and affected Coon on a personal and emotional level. In a letter to Dobzhansky shortly after its publication, Coon advised him that he considered his critiques defamatory and had consulted a lawyer, writing: "Why have you done this? When are you going to stop?" Washburn was a fellow student of Earnest Hooton at Harvard, and Coon saw his subsequent repudiation of biological race as an "oedipal" betrayal of their mentor. Garn, Coon's former student and coauthor of ''Races'', helped draft the AAPA motion condemning Putnam, which also disappointed Coon. Coon stopped referencing Montagu and then Washburn in his work after they each publicly rejected the concept of race. Nevertheless, historian Peter Sachs Collopy has noted that Coon was able to maintain cordial relationships with many of those he had disagreements with, rooted in his belief in the importance of academic
collegiality Collegiality is the relationship between colleagues. A colleague is a fellow member of the same profession. Colleagues are those explicitly united in a common purpose and respect each other's abilities to work toward that purpose. A colleague is ...
. Although some of these interpersonal conflicts faded over time—Coon wrote that he had "buried the now‐rusty hatchet" with Dobzhansky in a letter to him in 1975—the animosity between Coon and Montagu was severe and lasting. Before 1962, the two were on friendly terms, but represented rival schools of anthropology (Coon studied under Hooton at Harvard; Montagu under Boas at Columbia), and Coon privately disdained his work. After the publication of ''Origins'', they engaged in a lengthy correspondence, published in ''Current Anthropology'', that "consisted almost entirely of bickering over minutiae, name calling, and sarcasm". Privately, Coon suspected Montagu (a target of
McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...
) of
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
sympathies and of turning Dobzhansky and others against him. As late as 1977, he was quoted as saying to a colleague, "You had Ashley Montagu in your office? And you didn't shoot him?" The enmity was reciprocated; in a 1974 letter to
Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Goul ...
, Montagu wrote, "Coon… is a racist and an antisemite, as I know well, so when you describe Coon's letter to the editor of ''Natural History'' as 'amusing' I understand exactly what you mean—but it is so in exactly the same sense as ''Mein Kampf'' was 'amusing'." Coon continued to write and defend his work until his death, publishing two volumes of memoirs in 1980 and 1981.''National Anthropological Archives'', "Coon, Carleton Stevens (1904-1981), Papers"


Other work


Archaeology

After taking up his position at Pennsylvania in 1948, Coon embarked on a series of archaeological expeditions to Iran, Afghanistan and Syria. His 1949 excavations at four cave sites in Iran ( Bisitun, Tamtama, Khunik and
Belt Belt may refer to: Apparel * Belt (clothing), a leather or fabric band worn around the waist * Championship belt, a type of trophy used primarily in combat sports * Colored belts, such as a black belt or red belt, worn by martial arts practiti ...
) were the first systematic investigations of
Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός '' palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
archaeology in Iran. The most significant of these was Bisitun, which Coon called "Hunter's Cave", where he discovered evidence of the
Mousterian industry The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latt ...
and several human fossils that were later confirmed to belong to
Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ag ...
s. Coon published the results of these excavations in a 1951 monograph, ''Cave Explorations in Iran, 1949'', and subsequently wrote a popular book about the expeditions, ''The Seven Caves: Archaeological Explorations in the Middle East'' (1957). Bisitun remained the only fully-published Palaeolithic site from Iran for several decades. Coon followed up his 1949 expedition with excavations at Hotu Cave in 1951. He interpreted the site, together with Belt Cave, as the first traces of a "
Mesolithic The Mesolithic ( Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymo ...
" in Iran and claimed that they showed evidence of early
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
. Other archaeologists questioned the basis for these claims and subsequent excavations at sites such as Ganj Dareh clarified that Coon had probably conflated separate
Epipalaeolithic In archaeology, the Epipalaeolithic or Epipaleolithic (sometimes Epi-paleolithic etc.) is a period occurring between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic during the Stone Age. Mesolithic also falls between these two periods, and the two are som ...
hunter-gatherer and
Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...
farmer occupations at the sites.


Cryptozoology

Coon was, up to his death, a proponent of the existence of bipedal cryptids, including
Sasquatch Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a purported ape-like creature said to inhabit the forest of North America. Many dubious articles have been offered in attempts to prove the existence of Bigfoot, including anecdotal claims of ...
and
Yeti The Yeti ()"Yeti"
''
In the late 1950s, he was approached by ''Life'' magazine about either joining
Tom Slick Thomas Baker Slick Jr. (May 6, 1916 – October 6, 1962) was a San Antonio, Texas-based inventor, businessman, adventurer, and heir to an oil business. Slick's father, Thomas Baker Slick Sr., a.k.a. "The King of the Wildcatters", had made ...
and Peter Byrne's expedition to the
Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...
to search for evidence of Yeti, or organising his own expedition. Although Coon spent some time planning the logistics, in the end neither materialised. Coon believed that cryptid "Wild Men" were
relict A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon. Biology A relict (or relic) is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas. Geology and geomorphology In geology, a r ...
populations of Pleistocene apes and that, if their existence could be proved scientifically, they would lend support to his theory of the separate origins of human races. Cultural historian Colin Dickey has argued that the search for Sasquatch and Yeti are inextricably linked to racism: "For an anthropologist like Coon, invested in finding some sort of scientific basis to justify his racism, Wild Men lore offered a compelling narrative, a chance to prove a scientific basis for his white supremacy." It has also been speculated that the Yeti expeditions that Coon was involved with were
cover Cover or covers may refer to: Packaging * Another name for a lid * Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package * Album cover, the front of the packaging * Book cover or magazine cover ** Book design ** Back cover copy, part of copy ...
for American espionage in Nepal and Tibet, since both he and Slick had links to US intelligence agencies, and Byrne was allegedly involved in the extraction of the
14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...
from Tibet by the CIA in 1959. Coon's views on cryptids were a major influence on
Grover Krantz Grover Sanders Krantz (November 5, 1931 – February 14, 2002) was an American anthropologist and cryptozoologist; he was one of few scientists not only to research Bigfoot, but also to express his belief in the animal's existence. Throughout his ...
, and the two were close friends in his later life.


Reception and legacy

Coon's published magnum opus, ''The Origin of Races'' (1962), received mixed reactions from scientists of the era.
Ernst Mayr Ernst Walter Mayr (; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, philosopher of biology, and historian of science. His ...
praised the work for its synthesis as having an "invigorating freshness that will reinforce the current revitalization of physical anthropology". A book review by
Stanley Marion Garn Stanley Marion Garn Ph.D. (October 27, 1922 – August 31, 2007) was a human biologist and educator. He was Professor of Anthropology at the College for Literature, Science and Arts and Professor of Nutrition at the School of Public Health at the Un ...
criticised Coon's parallel view of the origin of the races with little gene flow but praised the work for its racial taxonomy and concluded: "an overall favorable report on the now famous Origin of Races". Sherwood Washburn and
Ashley Montagu Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu (June 28, 1905November 26, 1999) — born Israel Ehrenberg — was a British-American anthropologist who popularized the study of topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. He ...
were heavily influenced by the
modern synthesis Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely: * Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and ...
in biology and
population genetics Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and po ...
. In addition, they were influenced by
Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
, who had moved away from typological racial thinking. Rather than supporting Coon's theories, they and other contemporary researchers viewed the human species as a continuous serial progression of populations and heavily criticized Coon's ''Origin of Races''. In a New York Times' obituary he was hailed for "important contributions to most of the major subdivisions of modern anthropology", "pioneering contributions to the study of human transition from the hunter-gatherer culture to the first agricultural communities." and "important early work in studying the physical adaptations of humans in such extreme environments as deserts, the Arctic and high altitudes."
William W. Howells William White Howells (November 27, 1908 – December 20, 2005) was a professor of anthropology at Harvard University. Howells, grandson of the novelist William Dean Howells, was born in New York City, the son of John Mead Howells, the architec ...
, writing in a 1989 article, noted that Coon's research was "still regarded as a valuable source of data".W. W. Howells. "Biographical Memoirs V.58". National Academy of Sciences, 198

/ref> In 2001, John P. Jackson, Jr. researched Coon's papers to review the controversy around the reception of ''The Origin of Races'', stating in the article abstract: Jackson found in the archived Coon papers records of repeated efforts by Coon to aid Putnam's efforts to provide intellectual support to the ongoing resistance to racial integration, but cautioned Putnam against statements that could identify Coon as an active ally (Jackson also noted that both men had become aware that they had General
Israel Putnam Israel Putnam (January 7, 1718 – May 29, 1790), popularly known as "Old Put", was an American military officer and landowner who fought with distinction at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). He als ...
as a common ancestor, making them (at least distant) cousins, but Jackson indicated neither when either learned of the family relationship nor whether they had a more recent common ancestor). Alan H. Goodman (2000) has said that Coon's main legacy was not his "separate evolution of races (Coon 1962)," but his "molding of race into the new physical anthropology of adaptive and evolutionary processes (Coon et al. 1950)," since he attempted to "unify a typological model of human variation with an evolutionary perspective and explained racial differences with adaptivist arguments."


Personal life

Coon married Mary Goodale in 1926. They had two sons, one of whom, Carleton S. Coon Jr. went on to become Ambassador to Nepal. Coon and Goodale divorced and in 1945 he married Lisa Dougherty Geddes. He was a member of the
Congregational Church Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
. Coon retired from Pennsylvania in 1963, but retained an affiliation with the Peabody Museum and continued to write until the end of his life. He appeared on several episodes of television quiz show ''What in the World?'' between 1952 and 1957. Coon died in
Gloucester, Massachusetts Gloucester () is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is a part of Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 29,729 at the 2020 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a ...
on June 3, 1981.


Selected publications

Science:
''Tribes of the Rif'' (Harvard African Studies, 1931)
* ''The Races of Europe'' (1939) * '' The Story of Man'' (1954) * ''Caravan: the Story of the Middle East'' (1958) *''The Origin of Races'' (1962) * ''Races: A Study of the Problems of Race Formation in Man'' * '' The Hunting Peoples'' * ''Anthropology A to Z'' (1963) * '' Living Races of Man'' (1965) * ''Seven Caves: Archaeological Exploration in the Middle East'' * ''Mountains of Giants: A Racial and Cultural Study of the North Albanian Mountain Ghegs'' * ''Yengema Cave Report'' (his work in Sierra Leone) * '' Racial Adaptations'' (1982) Fiction and memoir: * ''Flesh of the Wild Ox'' (1932) * ''The Riffian'' (1933) * ''Measuring Ethiopia and Flight into Arabia'' (1935) * ''A North Africa Story: Story of an Anthropologist as OSS Agent'' (1980) * * '' Adventures and Discoveries: The Autobiography of Carleton S. Coon'' (1981)


See also

*
Scientific racism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
*
Physical anthropology Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
*
Social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In ...


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading


The Lagar Velho 1 Skeleton
*Hybrid Humans? Archaeological Institute of America Volume 52 Number 4, July/August 1999 by Spencer P.M. Harringto

*''Two Views of Coon's Origin of Races with Comments by Coon and Replies''. 1963. Theodosius Dobzhansky; Ashley Montagu; C. S. Coon in Current Anthropology, Vol. 4, No. 4. (Oct. 1963), pp. 360–367. * ** *


External links



National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Photographs of Coon
Massachusetts Digital Commonwealth
Coon's photography in Albania, 1929
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coon, Carleton Stevens 1904 births 1981 deaths 20th-century American writers American Congregationalists American people of Cornish descent American white supremacists Anti-black racism in the United States People of the Office of Strategic Services Phillips Academy alumni Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty People from Wakefield, Massachusetts Physical anthropologists Race and intelligence controversy Recipients of the Legion of Merit Proponents of scientific racism University of Pennsylvania faculty 20th-century American anthropologists