Georg Christian Thilenius (October 4, 1868 - December 28, 1937) was a German physician and anthropologist who was a native of Soden am Taunus

Bad Soden

Bad Soden is a town and spa in the Main-Taunus-Kreis, Hesse, Germany. Population 21,412 .Bad Soden is a popular residential town for commuters working in Frankfurt am Main. It is known for its various springs, which contain carbonic acid gas and various iron oxides. The waters are used both...

. He studied medicine in Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

 and Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, and in 1896 was habilitated as an anatomist at the University of Strasbourg

University of Strasbourg

The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with about 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....

. In 1900 he became a professor of anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

 and ethnology

Ethnology

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...

 at the University of Breslau, and in 1904 became director of the Museum of Ethnology, Hamburg

Museum of Ethnology, Hamburg

The Museum of Ethnology, Hamburg , founded in 1879, is today of the largest museums of ethnology in Europe. The approximately 350,000 objects in the collection are visited every year by about 180,000 visitors. It lies in the Rotherbaum quarter of the Eimsbüttel borough in Hamburg.-History:The...

, a position he maintained until 1935.

As director of the Hamburg Museum of Ethnography, Thilenius coordinated the 1908-1910 Südsee-Expedition, which was a scientific expedition to German administered territories in Micronesia

Micronesia

Micronesia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is distinct from Melanesia to the south, and Polynesia to the east. The Philippines lie to the west, and Indonesia to the southwest....

 and Melanesia

Melanesia

Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...

. Members of the research group included Friedrich Fülleborn

Friedrich Fülleborn

Friedrich Fülleborn was a physician who specialized in tropical medicine and parasitology. He was a native of Kulm, West Prussia, which today is known as Chełmno, Poland. He studied medicine and natural sciences in Berlin, where one of his instructors was Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer...

 (1866-1933), Otto Reche

Otto Reche

Otto Carl Reche was a German anthropologist and professor from Glatz , Prussian Silesia. He was active in researching whether there was a correlation between blood types and race...

 (1879-1966) and Wilhelm Müller-Wismar

Wilhelm Müller-Wismar

Wilhelm Müller-Wismar was a German ethnographer who was a native of Wismar. In 1905 he graduated from the University of Berlin, where he studied ethnography and anthropology under Felix von Luschan ....

(1881-1916). Over 15,000 objects and artifacts from the South Pacific were brought back to Hamburg, as well as scientific data that eventually numbered to 23 volumes.

Selected writings

• Ergebnisse der Südsee-Expedition 1908 - 1910 (Results of the South Seas Expedition 1908 - 1910), Hamburg 1927
• Das Hamburgische Museum für Völkerkunde (The Hamburg Museum of Ethnology), Berlin 1916
• Die Bedeutung der Meeresströmungen für die Besiedelung Melanesiens (The importance of Ocean Currents for the settlement of Melanesia) Hamburg 1906