The importance of Frobenius can hardly be overstated. Some sources describe him as “one of the most famous German anthropologists of the 20th century and one of the first to make systematic field research in Africa.”. Other sources, such as the British Museum, describe him as a “German ethnologist and authority on prehistoric art”.
According to the Frobenius Institute “Frobenius was one of the most influential and eminent ethnologists of his time, already intensely controversial during his lifetime. His collection of ethnographic data and oral traditions enjoys general recognition, as well as the comprehensive documentation of African rock art, in which he saw a kind of ‘Picture Book of Cultural History’. “
There are several reasons why Frobenius is worth remembering. Frobenius claimed to have discovered Atlantis in January 1911, made a dozen expeditions in the African continent, collected local folktales including the erotic ones (see Der schwarze Dekameron, 1910), proposed the notion of material history, proposed the notion of Paideuma to understand cultural development, he created a scientific journal named in fact Paideuma, proposed the notion of Kulturkreis to explain/understand the diffusion of culture and amassed an incredible collection of African items. He took extensive notes, took countless pictures and made countless sketches/drawings or ensured that his travel companions would take extensive visual documentation of his expeditions
The Frobenius institute states “most of his field notes and the visual documentation (drawings, watercolours, photographs) he created together with the artists who joined him on his expeditions have been preserved and are kept in the Frobenius-Institut’s archives.”