Robert Munro (archaeologist)

Summary

Robert Munro FRSE FSA LLD (21 July 1835 – 18 July 1920) was a Scottish physician and noted amateur archaeologist.[1]

Stained glass of Dr Robert Munro FRSE in Scottish National Portrait Gallery
An illustration from Monro's Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe of a bronze celt (a prehistoric, chisel-bladed tool), a bronze and bone awl, and a variety of objects used either as beads or as spindle whorls.

Edinburgh University's Munro Lectures in Archaeology and Anthropology are named in his honour.[2]

Life edit

He was born on 21 July 1835 at Assynt in Rossshire, and educated at Kiltearn Free Church School, and at the Royal Academy in Tain.[3] He studied Medicine at the University of Edinburgh graduating MA in 1860 and MB ChB in 1867.[3] He worked as a General Practitioner in Kilmarnock until 1886, when he turned his whole attention to archaeological research.[4] He was a member of many learned societies at home and abroad and published several books on the subjects of his research.[4]

In 1891 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.[3] His proposers were Rev John Duns, Sir Arthur Mitchell, Alexander Buchan and Ramsay Heatley Traquair.[3] He served as Vice President of the Society 1903 to 1908.[3] In 1894 he was elected a member of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh.[5][6]

In 1912 Munro began lecturing in Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology at Edinburgh University.[3]

He died on 18 July 1920.[3]

Family edit

In 1875 he married Anna Taylor (d.1907).[3]

Publications edit

  • Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings or Crannogs (1882)[4]
  • The Lake Dwellings of Europe: being the Rhind Lectures in Archaeology for 1888 (1890)[4][7]
  • Rambles and Studies in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Dalmatia, with an account of the Proceedings of the Congress of Archaeologists and Anthropologists held at Sarajevo, August 1894 (1895)[4][8]
  • Prehistoric Problems: being a selection of essays on the evolution of man and other controverted problems in anthropology and archæology (1897)[4][9]
  • Prehistoric Scotland and its Place in European Civilisation (1899)[4]
  • Man as Artist and Sportsman in the Palæolithic Period (1903)[10][11]
  • Archaeology and False Antiquities (1905)[12]
  • The Munro Bequest (1910)[7]
  • Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe: Being the Munro Lectures in Anthropology and Prehistoric Archæology in Connection with the University of Edinburgh, Delivered During February and March 1912 (1912)[13]
  • Prehistoric Britain (1913) .
  • From Darwinism to Kaiserism: being a review of the origin, effects and collapse of Germany's attempt at world-dominion by methods of barbarism (1919)[14][15]
  • Autobiographic Sketch of Robert Munro, M.A., M.D., LL.D., 21st July, 1835 - 18th July, 1920 (1921)[7]

Munro wrote articles for the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, attributed by the initials "R. Mu".[16]

References edit

  1. ^ "MUNRO, Robert". Who's Who. Vol. 59. 1907. p. 1275.
  2. ^ "Munro Lectures".
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g "Munroe, Robert" . Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. XIX. 1920.
  5. ^ Watson Wemyss, Herbert Lindesay (1933). A Record of the Edinburgh Harveian Society. T&A Constable, Edinburgh.
  6. ^ Minute Books of the Harveian Society. Library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
  7. ^ a b c Magdalena S. Midgley; Jeff Sanders (2012). Lake Dwellings After Robert Munro: Proceedings from the Munro International Seminar : the Lake Dwellings of Europe, 22nd and 23rd October 2010, University of Edinburgh. Sidestone Press. pp. 16–. ISBN 978-90-8890-092-1.
  8. ^ "Catalogue description". The National Archives. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  9. ^ F, W (1897). "Reviewed Work: Prehistoric Problems: Being a Selection of Essays on the Evolution of Man and Other Controverted Problems in Anthropology and Archæology by Robert Munro". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 7 (2): 195–197. JSTOR 25508408.
  10. ^ Munro, Robert (1906). "Man as Artist and Sportsman in the Palæolithic Period". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 25 (1): 92–128. doi:10.1017/S0370164600008361. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  11. ^ Munro, Robert (1912). "Palaeolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe". Nature. 91 (2276): 368. Bibcode:1913Natur..91..368.. doi:10.1038/091368a0. S2CID 38543070. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  12. ^ "Archaeology and False Antiquities". Internet Archive. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  13. ^ "Review of Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe by Robert Munro". The Athenaeum (4432): 419. 12 October 1912.
  14. ^ Julian Walker (28 December 2017). Words and the First World War: Language, Memory, Vocabulary. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 161–. ISBN 978-1-350-00193-0.
  15. ^ Munro, Robert (1919). "From Darwinism to Kaiserism: being a review of the origin, effects and collapse of Germany's attempt at world-dominion by methods of barbarism". Google Books. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  16. ^   Works by or about Robert Munro at Wikisource (As of July 2017, some of his works are in a Wikisource transcription project, available for reading, transcribing and editing.)

External links edit