Jan Czekanowski - Life

Life

Czekanowski attended school in Warsaw but was transferred to Latvia, where he finished his education in 1901. He then entered a university in Zurich in 1902; there, he studied anthropology, mathematics, anatomy, and ethnography as a pupil of Swiss anthropologist Rudolph Martin, author of the popular anthropology textbook Lehrbuch der Anthropologie. In 1907 Czekanowski defended his PhD. dissertation. For the dissertation's research he traveled to the Royal Museum in Berlin and to Middle Africa from 1906-1907. While in Africa, he led a team into the Congo to collect ethnographic materials. While working on studying the societies of Africa, he developed various statistical methods and contributed to the field of taxonomy. The research he made in Africa has since been published in five volumes and sent in 1910 to Saint Petersburg ethnography. He then became a professor at the University of Lwów and University of Poznań. While working he introduced an innovative take on mathematical statistics. He worked in these universities from 1913 to 1945. In addition, he worked at UAM from 1937-1946, where he researched the dynamics of evolution in human populations. He played numerous scientific roles at the UAM, including vice-chairman of the Polish Social Statistic Company.