Boas, Franz
德裔美籍人类学家，其重大贡献是在美国把人类学建立为一学术科目。原本攻读物理和地理（1881年获博士学位），1883～1884年参加到巴芬岛的科学探险活动，开始转而研究爱斯基摩人文化。後来对不列颠哥伦比亚的原住民（包括夸扣特尔人）进行研究。1896～1905年指导耶苏普北太平洋探险队，调查西伯利亚和北美洲的原住民之间的关系。他在人类学方面的成就是无人能超越的。在他之前，大部分的人类学家固守社会文化演化这种相当粗浅的理论，主张有些民族在遗传上就比其他民族更为文明或较为发达。鲍亚士认为持这种观点的人是种族优越感在作祟，他主张所有的人类都同样地经过演化，只是演化的方式不同。现在的人类学家主要受他的观点影响，相信种族之间的差异是历史文化因素而非遗传因素造成的。1896年起在哥伦比亚大学任教，一直到去世，在美国他是这门专业学问的主要组织者，也是潘乃德、克罗伯、米德和萨丕尔等人的良师益友。主要着作有《原始人的心灵》（1911）、《原始艺术》（1927）和《人种、语言和文化》（1940）。
1858～1942年
Boas, Franz
German-U.S. anthropologist, largely credited with establishing anthropology as an academic discipline in the U.S. Trained in physics and geography (Ph.D., 1881), Boas was part of an early scientific expedition to Baffin Island (1883-84), where he turned to studying Eskimo culture. He later studied native peoples of British Columbia, including the Kwakiutl. From 1896 to 1905 he directed the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, which investigated the relationships between the aboriginal peoples of Siberia and North America. His achievements in anthropology are virtually unrivaled. Before Boas, most anthropologists adhered to a relatively crude theory of sociocultural evolution, arguing that some peoples were inherently more civilized or developed than others. Boas argued that such views were ethnocentric, and that all human groups have actually evolved equally but in different ways. It is largely due to Boas that human differences are now attributed by anthropologists to historic “cultural” rather than genetic factors. Teaching at Columbia University from 1896 until his death, he was a leading organizer of the profession in the U.S. and the mentor of Ruth Benedict, Alfred L. Kroeber, Margaret Mead, and Edward Sapir. His books include The Mind of Primitive Man (1911), Primitive Art (1927), and Race, Language and Culture (1940).
