Paul Rivet
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Paul Rivet (1876-1958) was a French ethnologist, who founded the Musée de l'Homme in 1937. He is at the origine of the theory according to which South-American man would come from Australia and Melanesia. Formed as a physician, he took part to the "French Second Geodesic Mission" which arrived in Ecuador in 1901. He stayed for six years in South America. When he returned to France, he was engaged in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, directed by René Vernaus.
His notes were published along with René Vernaus' notes, between 1921 and 1922 under the title "Ancient Ethnography of Ecuador". In 1926, Paul Rivet participated in the establishment of the Institut d'Ethnologie in Paris, where he formed many French ethnologist. In 1928, he succeeded to René Vernaus as director of the National Museum of Natural History.
Rivet's theory asserts that Asia is the cradle of the American man, but also that migrations took place from Australia 6.000 years before, and from Melanesia a bit later. Les Origines de l'Homme Américain ("The Origins of the American Man") were published in 1943, and contains linguistic and anthropologic arguments which suppprt his thesis.
In 1942, Paul Rivet went to Colombia where he founded the Anthropological Institute and Museum. Returning to Paris in 1945, he continued teaching while carrying on his researchs. His linguistic researchs brought several new elements on the Aymara and Quechua language.
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