Bastian, Adolf definition of Bastian, Adolf in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Bastian, Adolf (ä`dôlf bäs`tyän), 1826–1905, German anthropologist. Often called the father of ethnography, he recorded his observations of peoples and cultures in Der Mensch in der Geschichte [man in history] (1860). His concept of "elemental ideas" as common to mankind but varying in form according to "folk ideas" of a given area foreshadows the kulturkreis of Wilhelm Schmidt Schmidt, Wilhelm, 1868–1954, German linguist and anthropologist, a Roman Catholic priest. Educated at the universities of Berlin and Vienna, he entered the Society of the Divine Word in 1890. Residing mainly in Austria, he taught at the Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. . His influence was transmitted through the works of Franz Boas Boas, Franz (bō`ăz, –ăs), 1858–1942, German-American anthropologist, b. Minden, Germany; Ph.D. Univ. of Kiel, 1881.
..... Click the link for more information. and others. Bastian's important studies appeared in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, which he helped to found and edit, and in Ethnologische Forschungen (1871–73).