Topic: William Halse Rivers Rivers

William Halse Rivers Rivers 1864-1922, British anthropologist. He taught at Cambridge from 1893 until shortly before his death. Trained in medicine and psychology, he pioneered in the experimental study of mental functions among preliterate peoples, making his first field investigations in 1898 among the islanders of the Torres Strait, which separates Australia and New Guinea. Rivers also made a major contribution to social anthropology, introducing the genealogical method into sociological investigations. This method is applied with great success in his classic study, The Todas (1906). An... Read more