Sociétés scientifiques, musées, universités

Abstract

This article discusses how the focus on colonial archaeology in Belgium moved from scientific societies to museums and universities. In comparison to the Belgian national archaeology, its colonial counterpart acquired its institutional recognition in a later stage with the creation of the anthropological section in the Congo Museum in 1898. Attention is also paid to the way in which Congolese archaeological objects were integrated within typically western discourses on the “antiquity of man”, the existence of “evolution phases” in material culture and the worldwide dispersion op the different human “races”.

Keywords

• Belgium
• Congo
• diffusionism
• evolutionism
• institutionalisation