Barbara Harrisson

Barbara was born in Reichenstein, Silesia (now Poland) as the daughter of the mining entrepreneur and art collector Dr. Gerhart Güttler (1889–1966) and his wife Clara (née Haselbach; 1897–1972).

Barbara Harrisson (born Barbara Veronika Gertrud Maria Elisabeth Güttler, 20 May 1922 – 26 December 2015) was a German-British art historian who also contributed scientifically to nature conservation, primatology, anthropology, and archaeology.

In 1926 the family moved from Reichenstein to Berlin.

After graduation and Arbeitsdienst, in 1941 she started studies in art history in Berlin, but was drafted for military service after a few weeks and worked during the Second World War as a secretary for the German military intelligence in Berlin, Paris and Breslau.

Of her three brothers only the youngest survived the war.

From 1945 she worked in Frankfurt for the Agency for Decartelization of IG Farben.

In 1951 she married Eberhard Friedrich Brünig (born 1926), who had an education in forestry.

From 1953 on, her professional development underwent a change.

During her stays in Asia, America, Australia and finally back in Europe, she worked and taught in the fields of nature conservation, primatology, anthropology, archaeology and art history.

In 1953, she went with her first husband, Eberhard Friedrich Brünig, who took up a position in the British colonial service and later became an expert in tropical forestry, to Kuching/Sarawak, Borneo.

There she started to work for the curator of the Sarawak State Museum, Tom Harrisson, "a romantic polymath, a drunken bully, an original-thinking iconoclast, a dreadful husband and father, [and] a fearless adventurer"; they married in 1956.

Tom and Barbara Harrisson worked on a broad spectrum of activities – among them conservation projects for sea turtles and orangutans close to Bako National Park.

Their most important finding was on 7 February 1958, when Barbara Harrisson and colleagues discovered an inverted human skull while carefully digging in Hell Trench H/6, about 2.5 m below original ground surface.

The surrounding deposits were initially dated to about 45,000 to 39,000 years by radiocarbon dating, which was received with much scepticism by many scientists.

But later excavations and new carbon-dating confirmed the results of Barbara and Tom Harrisson, confirming the 'Deep Skull' still as the earliest fossil proofing the presence of modern humans in Southeast Asia.

Barbara Harrisson – still without any formal education – led excavations in Niah and other places in Borneo, and documented this work in many publications.

During this work she became a specialist in ceramics.

Barbara Harrisson became a pioneer in raising and rehabilitation of young Orang-Utans, who had lost their mothers and their habitat due to deforestation – activities which later led to the establishment of reserves like the Orang Utan Rehabilitation Center in Sepilok/Sabah (since 1964) and the Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra (since 1980).

In November 1966 Tom Harrisson retired as curator of the Sarawak Museum.

In 1967, the couple went to Cornell University (Ithaca, USA), where Tom got a teaching assignment at the South-East Asian Program.

When Tom Harrisson left to Europe for a new marriage, Barbara – still without any formal education – took over his seminars at Cornell.

1972 she finally started her own university education as an art historian and obtained her master's degree in 1974.

Her time in the USA was interrupted by many stays in Southeast Asia.

In 1973, she became an officer of the International Primate Protection League (IPPL) – in 2015 she was still on the advisory board – as her interests extended to regulations for the trade with primates, which – in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) led to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) (drafted 1963, opened for signature in 1973, entered into force on 1 July 1975).

The main interest of Tom and Barbara Harrisson was on archaeology and anthropology.

They undertook pioneering excavations in the West Mouth of the Niah Great Cave.

In 1976 she joined the Asia Department of the Western Australia Institute of Technology at the University of Perth, Australia, as a lecturer.

In 1977 Barbara Harrisson was appointed director of the Princessehof Ceramics Museum in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands – a significant ceramics museum, which has been put on the international map by her successful work including numerous exhibitions and publications.

Her main interest was focused on the collections of Martaban as well as of Zhangzhou ware (formerly "Swatow ware") ceramics.

Her PhD thesis on Heirloom Jars of Borneo under Stanley O'Connor, professor for South-east Asian art history, was started at this time and was finished in 1984.

After retirement in 1987, she continued publishing and attending scientific meetings.

In her last years, Barbara Harrisson – almost blind – was engaged in writing her autobiography.

She died in Jelsum, Netherlands.

The following list of Barbara Harrisson's publications is a selection of books, articles, and descriptions of ceramics collections in museums.