Brinton, Daniel Garrison

Brinton, Daniel Garrison

(1837–99) physician, cultural anthropologist; born in Thornbury, Pa. He graduated from Yale in 1858, took a medical degree in 1861, and studied abroad for a year before returning to serve as a Union army surgeon (1862–65). He retired from medical practice in 1887 to pursue anthropological research full time. His American Race (1891) was the first systematic classification of the aboriginal languages of the Americas and his studies of the Mayans were landmarks in American archaeology.