[Archaeology and criminology--Strengths and weaknesses of interdisciplinary cooperation]

Interdisciplinary cooperation of archaeology and criminology is often focussed on the scientific methods applied in both fields of knowledge. In combination with the humanistic methods traditionally used in archaeology, the finding of facts can be enormously increased and the subsequent hermeneutic deduction of human behaviour in the past can take place on a more solid basis. Thus, interdisciplinary cooperation offers direct and indirect advantages. But it can also cause epistemological problems, if the weaknesses and limits of one method are to be corrected by applying methods used in other disciplines. This may result in the application of methods unsuitable for the problem to be investigated so that, in a way, the methodological and epistemological weaknesses of two disciplines potentiate each other. An example of this effect is the quantification of qualia. These epistemological reflections are compared with the interdisciplinary approach using the concrete case of the "Eulau Crime Scene".

[Hans Gross as an archaeologist--the significance of archaeology for 'encyclopedic' criminology]

In some cases, forensics and criminology have to cooperate with disciplines that usually are counted among the humanities, e.g. with archaeology. This article examines the significance of this cooperation for the criminological epistemology at the turn of the 19th century. These methodological considerations are illustrated by an example: When Hans Gross, who became the founder of the Austrian School of Criminology later, saw an unusually shaped hill near Feldbach, a town in southern Styria, he assumed this hill to be a burial mound and informed the responsible archaeological authorities immediately. Further investigations showed, however, that this hill was a natural formation. This is an early example for interdisciplinary cooperation, which proves that both in archaeology and in criminology a thorough inspection of the site is decisive for further scientific analysis of the topic of research.

[Truth curves on soot blackened paper--apparatus-supported lie detection in Graz in the 1920s]

In the 1920s, experiments with apparatus-supported lie detection and registration of expression were conducted at the Criminological Institute of the University of Graz in order to establish a sound methodological basis for testimony research. For this purpose, the criminologist Ernst Seelig used a method of lie detection developed by the psychologist Vittorio Benussi, which focuses on the analysis of breathing. Benussi had stated that the expiration after telling a lie was faster than after telling the truth, but Seelig could not verify this rule in forensic practice. Consequently, this method of lie detection was of no practical use for criminology. Seelig also carried out experiments with the method of registration of expression developed by the psychiatrist Otto Lowenstein. He registered the examinee's thoracic and abdominal breathing and the movements of the extremities with the help of a kymograph. By interpretation of the curves recorded on soot blackened paper, conclusions concerning the mental elements of an offence as well as the existence of certain dispositions and of amnesia should have been made possible. Seelig was convinced of the efficiency of this method. These experiments can be regarded as early attempts at finding not only simple facts but also answers to quasi-metaphysical questions concerning the "true nature" of man with the help of methods based on natural science and modern technology. Thus they are precursors of present-day neuroscience and neuro-imaging.

[Criminology and superstition at the turn of the 19th century]

Criminology, which institutionalised at university level at the turn of the 19th century, was intensively engaged in the exploration of superstition. Criminologists investigated the various phenomena of superstition and the criminal behaviour resulting from it. They discovered bizarre (real or imagined) worlds of thought and mentalities, which they subjected to a rationalistic regime of interpretation in order to arrive at a better understanding of offences and crimes related to superstition. However, they sometimes also considered the use of occultist practices such as telepathy and clairvoyance to solve criminal cases. As a motive for committing homicide superstition gradually became less relevant in the course of the 19th century. Around 1900, superstition was accepted as a plausible explanation in this context only if a psychopathic form of superstition was involved. In the 20th century, superstition was no longer regarded as an explanans but an explanandum.

[Traces of blood. The significance of blood in criminology at the turn of the 19th century]

In late 19th and early 20th century, criminology became institutionalized as an independent branch of science. Methodologically it focused on the 'exact' methods of the natural sciences, but also it tried to integrate the methods of the humanities. This mix of methods becomes visible in the treatment of blood, which on the one hand was an object of then brand new methods of scientific analysis (identification of human blood by the biological or precipitin method), and on the other hand was analyzed as a product of the magic and superstitious mentalities of criminals. The methodical tension resulting from this epistemological crossbreeding did not disturb the criminologists, for whom the reconciliation of opposite ways of thinking and researching seemed to be possible. In this encyclopaedic analysis of blood early criminology tried to combine the anthropological exploration of vampirism with the chemical and microscopic detection of antibodies and haemoglobin, thus mirroring the positivistic optimism that was then prevalent.

[Hans Gross and the beginning of criminology on a scientific basis]

Modern criminology--if one wants to consider it a separate scientific discipline at all--is usually perceived as being mainly influenced by the methods of natural sciences supplemented by components from the field of psychology, which, at least in some of its conceptions, tends to define itself as a natural science, too. If we take a look at the history of science, we will see development of criminology in this direction was not necessarily inevitable. The scientific work of the Austrian Hans Gross (1847-1915), one of the founding fathers of scientific criminology, serves as an example of the way how natural sciences and their exact methods became established in the methodological apparatus of modern criminology, although in praxi his claim for the application of exact methods was all too often replaced by irrational and intuitive ways of working. Still, Hans Gross' fundamental decision for the exact methods derived from the natural sciences is an important step towards a criminology that can be understood as a part of natural sciences, largely superseding the methods of cultural sciences and anthropological philosophy. This approach made the (criminal) human being an object of measurement and can result in the concept of man as a mere phenomenon of quantity. This is, on the one hand, ethically questionable; on the other hand, it made modern criminology more efficient and successful.