Locating the Central Asiatic Expedition

Epistemic Imperialism in Vertebrate Paleontology

Bibliographic Data

ID4175035
AuthorsLukas Rieppel (0000-0003-3141-7995, John Brown University), Yu-Chi Chang (Oberlin College)
Year2023
Volume114
Issue4
Pages725-746
Publication date2023-12-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/727563
OpenAlexW4389775691
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited23

During the 1920s, researchers from the American Museum of Natural History led by Roy Chapman Andrews exported a large collection of valuable fossils from the Gobi Desert. While their expedition was celebrated across Europe and the United States, it aroused enormous controversy in China and Mongolia, especially after a new Nationalist government was formed in Nanjing during the late 1920s. Whereas Chinese scholars accused American scientists of plundering their natural heritage, Andrews argued that because dinosaurs went extinct long before the creation of China, prehistoric fossils belonged equally to all mankind. This essay locates the Central Asiatic Expedition within a broader history of epistemic imperialism to explore what the controversy that it engendered reveals about the production, circulation, and accumulation of knowledge in a global context

Archaeology · China · Context (archaeology · Environmental ethics · Geography · Prehistory · Sociology · Vertebrate paleontology · Anthropology · Geology · History · History of Science and Medicine · History of Science and Natural History · Paleontology · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science

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