Herman Helmuth

Professor Emeritus

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Education

Dr. rer. nat. habil (Kiel University, Germany)

Research Interests

Biological anthropology, osteology, secular trend, body height and proportions; Germany, Vikings, North America, Maya.

Profile

Professor Helmuth studied physical anthropology at the University of Kiel, Germany, where he received both his doctorate in 1964 and the Dr. habil degree in 1975. His interests lie in the interplay between human biology and culture, focused in particular upon osteology, human growth and development, pathology, and evolution of the human body. He has investigated materials from excavations in Germany, Ontario, the Arctic, and Belize as well as pursued research on modern human body height and growth patterns as well as studies of the prehistoric Australopithecines. He is interested as well in the debates between Creationists and Evolutionists.

Professor Helmuth, now retired, served at Trent between 1969 and 2002. He has published extensively in both German and English. Among his publications in English are “Human Skeletal Remains from the Scott Site, Ontario” in Ontario Archaeology (1972: 3-10); “Applied Physical Anthropology and the School: Seats, Desks, and Pupils” in Orbit (1982, Vol. 13, No. 1: 25-26); “Worked Human Bones as Objects of Art” in Proceedings of the 12th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (Brno) (1989, Vol. 29, No. 3: 211-219); “Lucy’s Body Height and Leg Length: Human or Ape-like?” in Zeitschrift fur Morphologie und Anthropologie (1992, Vol. 79: 121-124), The Path to Humanity. Canadian Scholars Press, Toronto 1999. Articles: “Body Height, body mass and surface area of the Neandertals,” Zschr. Morph. Anthrop. 82: 1-12, 1998; “Lucy’s Body height: An Assessment by three Independent Methods,” Zschr. Morph. Anthrop. 82:199-206, 1999; “The Maximum lifespan potential of Hominidae - a re-evaluation,” Homo 50/3: 283-296, 1999; Reports on the Peterborough Armoury Skeletons, 1998, 1999; “Defining Royal Maya Burials: A Case from Pacbitun,” in The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley, ed. J.F. Garbar (Gainesville: Univ. Press of Florida, 2004, pp. 228-237).