Bernhard Eduardovich Petri (Russian: Бернгард Эдуардович Петри; 17 September 1884 – 25 November 1937) was a Russian anthropologist and archaeologist. Petri organized archeology and ethnographic expeditions to Lake Baikal, while employed by the Kunstkamera during the 1910s.
Iron artifacts were discovered and used to propose the Kurumchi culture as the first Iron Age society of Baikalia. Petri became a professor at the Irkutsk State University and taught about the ancient history of the, Indigenous peoples of Siberia. He documented the cultures of several reindeer herding societies across the East Siberian taiga for Institute of the Peoples of the North throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
In 1937 Petri was executed by the NKVD during the Great Purge.
Bernhard Petri | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Bernhard Eduardovich Petri 17 September 1884 |
| Died | 25 November 1937 |
| Nationality | Russian, Soviet |
| Alma mater | Saint Petersburg Imperial University |
| Known for | Proposing the Kurumchi culture as the first Iron Age archaeological culture of Baikalia. Ethnographic research about indigenous peoples from the East Siberian taiga. |
| Spouse | Lyubov Illaionovna née Kokhanovich (died 1937) |
| Children | Oleg (1916-1984) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Anthropology, Archaeology, Ethnology |
| Institutions | Kunstkamera, Irkutsk State University, Institute of the Peoples of the North |
| Doctoral advisor | Vasily Radlov |
| Notable students | Georgy Debets, Mikhail M. Gerasimov, Gavriil Ksenofontov, Alexey Okladnikov, and Georgy P. Sosnovsky |