Wenner-Gren Symposia in the 1960s

Twenty-four symposia were held at Burg Wartenstein between 1960 and 1965.

Among the symposia listed below are several landmark conferences that either served as the basis for influential books -- such as "Cross-Cultural Similarities in the Urbanization Process" (resulting in the seminal text, "Courses Toward Urban Life") -- or serve as important milestones in theoretical development of a discipline.  Such is the case with "Behavioral Consequences of Genetic Differences in Man," which Emoke Szathmary highlights in her report on Biological Anthropology in the 50th Anniversary Report as representing "the apparent end and then a resurgence of research in the biology of social phenomena."

And while the vast majority of Wenner-Gren symposia during the 1960s were held at the Burg Wartenstein Conference Center, several very significant meetings were held in other locations such as "Man the Hunter," which was organized by Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore and held at the University of Chicago in 1966.

1960

• "From 15,000 BC to the Thresholds of Urban Civilization" Robert J. Braidwood and Gordon R. Willey, organizers
• "Early Man and Pleistocene Stratigraphy in the Circum-Mediterranean Regions" Alberto Blanc and F. Clark Howell, organizers
• "The Chronology of Western Mediterranean and Saharan Prehistoric Cave and Rock Shelter Art" Alberto Blanc and Luis Pericot, organizers
• "Teaching of Anthropology" David Mandelbaum, organizer
• "Economics and Anthropology: Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies" Raymond Firth and Bert F. Hoselitz, organizers
• "Comparative Aspects of Human Communication" Godfrey E. Arnold and John Lotz, organizers
• "Anthropological Horizons" Alfred L. Kroeber and Clyde Cluckhohn, organizers

1961

• "African Ecology and Human Evolution" Francois Bourliere and F. Clark Howell, organizers
• "Anthropology and the Conditions of Individual and Social Freedom" David Bidney, organizer
• "Ceramics and Man" Frederick R. Matson, organizer

1962

• "The Use of Computers in Anthropology" Dell Hymes, Sydney Lamb, et al. organizers
• "Classification and Human Evolution" Sherwood Washburn, organizer
• "Salvage Archaeology" Fred Wendorf and J.O. Brew, organizers
• "The Cultural Development of the Maya" Evon Vogt, organizer
• "The Determination of the Philosophy of a Culture" F.S.C. Northrop, organizer

1963
(No symposia were held during this year)

1964

• "The Biology of Populations of Anthropological Importance" Joseph Weiner, organizer
• "Pastoral Nomadism" Gordon Bowles, Lawrence Krader, and Robert Murphy, organizers
• "Revolution vs. Continuity in the Study of Language" Dell Hymes, organizer
• "Cross-Cultural Similarities in the Urbanization Process" Edward Bruner, Aidan Southall, & Oscar Lewis, organizers
• "Behavioral Consequences of Genetic Differences in Man" J.N. Spuhler, organizer

1965

• "Animal Communication" Thomas Sebeok, organizer
• "Systematic Investigation of the African Later Tertiary and Quaternary" W.W. Bishop and J.D. Clark, organizers
• "The Evolutionist Interpretation of Culture" Eric Wolf, organizer
• "Primate Social Behavior" Phyllis Jay, organizer

1966

• "Man the Hunter" Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore, organizers
• "Local-Level Politics" Marc J. Swartz, organizer
• "The Inter-Relation of Biological and Cultural Adaptation" Joseph Weiner and Paul Baker, organizers
• "Ethnography of Law" Laura Nader, organizer
• "Kinship and Culture" Francis Hsu, organizer

1967

• "World Association for the Study of Primate Variability (Human and Non-Human): Constitutional Session" Santiago Genoves and Paul Baker, organizers
• "Primitive Art and Society" Raymond Firth, Anthony Forge, and Robert Goldwater, organizers
• “Reunión para la Integración de la Enseñanza con las Investigaciones Antropológicas” G.A. Beltrán, J.V. Murra, et al., organizers
• "Theory and Method in American Indian Ethnolgocial and Ethnohistorical Research" Nancy Lurie and Eleanor Leacock, organizers

1968

• "The Effects of Conscious Purpose on Human Adaptation" Gregory Bateson, organizer
• "World Views: Their Nature and Their Role in Culture" W.T. Jones, organizer
• "Social Organization and Subsistence in Primate Societies" John Ellefson, organizer

1969

• "Systematics of the Old World Monkeys" John Napier, organizer
• "The Moral and Aesthetic Structure of Human Adaptation" Gregory Bateson, organizer
• "The Ongoing Evolution of Latin American Populations" Francisco Salzano, organizer
• "Kinship and Locality" David Schneider and Louis Dumont, organizers

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