Hans Georg Wunderlich (19 January 1928 – 28 May 1974) was a German geologist.

Life and work

Wunderlich studied geology in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

. In 1952 he was awarded his doctorate in Göttingen (''Contributions to the geology of the

Northern Harz Boundary Fault The Northern Harz Boundary Fault (german: Harznordrandstörung or ''Harznordrandverwerfung'') is a geological fault where the Harz Block, which consists of rocks formed during the Palaeozoic Era and folded in the course of Hercynian mountain bui ...

in the Bad Harzburg area'') and from 1957 he taught in Göttingen. In 1963 he became a professor in Göttingen, in 1970 professor of geology and palaeontology in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

. He dealt with

geotectonics Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents k ...

and

orogenesis Orogeny is a mountain building process. An orogeny is an event that takes place at a convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An ''orogenic belt'' or ''orogen'' develops as the compressed plate crumples and is uplifted t ...

, where he was a supporter of the theory of

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large ...

. From 1969 he was main coordinator for the Priority Program of the Geodynamics of the Mediterranean region of the German Research Foundation.

Work on the archaeology of Crete

During his geological studies in

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

he became aware of the palace of

Knossos Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city. Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...

. He disagreed with the established thesis of Sir

Arthur Evans Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on t ...

that the

Minoan civilization The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450BC ...

had been extremely peaceful, pointing instead to evidence of a pronounced cult of the dead similar to that of the ancient Egyptian culture of the

Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth ...

. In the book ''Wohin der Stier Europa trug'' (1972), he analysed the Minoan excavations from the perspective of geology and identified many contradictions in Evans' theories; for example, the devices called baths are completely unsuitable for bathing, since their sheathing is made of a water-soluble material and there is no drainage. He considered the light wells to be ventilation ducts. He also argued that it was unlikely that the "palaces" and "villas" were permanently inhabited, as there was no water supply there; he did not think that the wells that had been found were deep enough and therefore interpreted them as cisterns. Wunderlich therefore assumed that the population lived in the plains and the so-called villas and palaces were mortuary temples. Wunderlich's criticism provoked a long-standing scientific dispute, but today it is regarded as an outsider's opinion and is considered largely refuted.Branigan, Keith (1978)
Review of: The Secret of Crete by Hans Georg Wunderlich, Richard Winston
''The Geographical Journal'', Vol. 144, No. 3 (Nov., 1978), pp. 502-503.

Works (in chronological order)

*''Tektonik und Metamorphose der Bündener Schiefer in der Umgebung des Gotthardmassivs'' (1957, with W. Pleßmann) *''Aufbau und Altersverhältnis der Tektonik- und Metamorphose-Vorgängen in Bündenerschiefer Nordtessins und Graubündens'' (1958) *''Deckenbau, Faltung und Lineation in den Ligurischen Alpen und im angrenzenden Apennin'' (1958) *''Zur Tektonik und Metamorphose der Apuanischen Alpen'', Akademie der Wissenschaften Göttingen, Math.-Naturwiss. Klasse, 1960, S. 118–158 *''Wesen und Ursachen der Gebirgsbildung'', BI Hochschultaschenbücher (1966) *with Erich Bederke: ''Atlas zur Geologie'', Bibliographisches Institut (BI) Mannheim, (1968) *''Einführung in die Geologie'', BI Hochschultaschenbücher, 2 Bände (1968) *''Wohin der Stier Europa trug: Kretas Geheimnis und das Erwachen des Abendlandes'' (1972); translated into English by Richard Winston as ''The Secret of Crete'' (1974) *''Bau der Erde. Geologie der Kontinente und Meere'', BI Hochschultaschenbücher, 2 Bände (1973, 1975) *''Die Steinzeit ist noch nicht zu Ende. Eine Psycho-Archäologie des Menschen'' (1974) *''Das neue Bild der Erde. Faszinierende Entdeckungen der modernen Geologie'' (1975)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wunderlich, Hans Georg 1928 births 1974 deaths 20th-century German geologists