Los vínculos científicos de Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff con los antropólogos americanistas franceses (Paul Rivet, Claude Lévi-Strauss)

This paper explores the relationship between these three anthropologists who had a great influence on the development of americanist studies and anthropology, with a focus on unpublished archival material that will bring some new data for the history of Colombian anthropology. This will help us to understand better the consequences of Rivet’s two-year presence in Colombia. Once he left Bogotain 1943 and until Rivet’s death in 1958, Reichel kept a special relationship with him. With their correspondence it is easier to follow the evolution of Reichel’s ideas in their first period. Rivet was the link between Reichel and Lévi-Strauss when they really got in touch in the 1960’s, since Lévi-Strauss knew Reichel’s first ethnographic researches in the late 1940’s thanks to Rivet. Their mutual acquaintance was decisive for the coming of a few French ethnographers close to Lévi-Strauss that chose Colombian fieldworks.