The Human Ethology Film Archive is a scientific research institute.
It was founded by Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and taken over by the
Senckenberg Gesellschaft fuer Naturforschung in 2014.
 
 

In the 1960s Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt developed a cross-cultural research program on universals in Human behaviour. Aiming at recording unstaged social interaction, together with his team at the Research Unit for Human Ethology based at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioural Physiology at Seewiesen, Germany, he documented every day life of people in a variety of societies worldwide, in film, photography and audio recordings.

 
 
In five societies in Southern Africa, South America and Southeast Asia/Oceania the researchers regularly visited the same families and neighborhoods over and over for several decades. The result of this work is a unique record of the course of life of individuals from infancy to adulthood and to the next generation, as well as of the history of their societies, and of the changes in their conditions of life. Shorter studies were conducted in several other societies, altogether with more than 50 groups worldwide.

 
 
Today, the archive comprises approx. 800 hours of film and video footage, out of which more than 300 films were edited and for the most part published by the IWF in Goettingen, as well as substantial associated research material, and a film data base containing the indexing of the films by shot. It is thus the world's most comprehensive archive on human bio-cultural diversity.
Inspection of the archive's material is possible for scientific purposes and at the premises of the institute only. Please contact us.

 
 
The Linking Heritage of Humans
 
The documents of the cross-cultural longterm research are unique and irreproducible references of global significance. They demonstrate the variability of behaviour and agency of individuals and groups, cultural diversity and culture change, as well as cultural analogies and universals, and biological equality and universals of the "Humankind Family". Especially our shared characteristics rooting in the common origin of all Humans and the knowledge and value systems which ground in our common bio-cultural evolution provide foundations for the challenges of the global future – for international and intercultural understanding, for the transformation of global relations, for the leveling of legacy hegemonies and inequalities, and thus enabling prosperity and peace.