Jindřich Wankel

Wankel was born on 15 July 1821 to Damian Wankel, a clerk, and his wife Magdalena, née Schwarz, in a bilingual environment. He attended German schools in Prague and later studied medicine at the University of Prague as a student of Josef Hyrtl.^[1]

Wankel married Eliška Šímová [cs] and they had four daughters together:^[2]

• Lucie Bakešová (1853–1935)^[3]
• Karla Absolonová-Bufková (1855–1941)^[4]
• Vlasta Havelková (1857–1939)^[5]
• Madlena Wanklová [cs] (1865–1922)

Wankel's grandson Karel Absolon was also a famous archaeologist and worked in the same area.^{[citation needed]} Another grandson was photographer Vladimír Jindřich Bufka.^{[citation needed]}

He came to work in the area of the Moravský kras (Moravian Karst, today's Czech Republic) in 1847, and from 1849 lived in Blansko as a medical doctor. He started geological exploration of the area and later carried out palaeontological, archaeological, and anthropological research.^{[citation needed]}

In 1850, in Blansko, he set up the first ever laboratory to research fossil bones from the Cenozoic Era where he assembled a complete skeleton of a cave bear (until then, such bones were used for spodium in the nearby sugar refinery.^[6] His most famous discovery (1872) was the burial site of a nobleman from the Bronze Age at the Býčí skála cave, with skeletons of 40 ritually killed young women.^[7][8]

• Der Menschenknochenfund in der Býčískálahöhle ("The human bones found in the Býčí skála Cave") (Vienna 1871)
• Prähistorische Eisenschmelz- und Schmiedestätten in Mähren ("Prehistoric iron smelting and forging facilities in Moravia") (Vienna 1879)
• Bilder aus der Mährischen Schweiz und ihrer Vergangenheit ("Images from the Moravian Switzerland and their past") (Vienna 1882)
• Beitrag zur Geschichte der Slaven in Europa ("Contribution to the history of the Slavs in Europe") (Olomouc 1885)