Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (French pronunciation: [kɔ̃stɑ̃tin(ə) samɥɛl ʁafinɛsk(ə)ʃmalts]) (22 October 1783 – 18 September 1840) was a French polymath of the early 19th century. Born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, he was self-educated in France.
As a young man, Rafinesque-Schmaltz traveled to the United States, eventually settling in Ohio in 1815. There, he made significant contributions to botany, zoology, and the study of prehistoric earthworks in North America. Beyond his previous extensive work in Europe, he also contributed to the study of ancient Mesoamerican linguistics. In 1836, Rafinesque was the first person to use the term Taíno as a way of referring to the Indigenous peoples of the Greater Antilles.
Rafinesque had a reputation as an eccentric and erratic genius. He was an autodidact who excelled in various fields of knowledge, as a zoologist, botanist, writer and polyglot. He wrote prolifically on such diverse topics as anthropology, biology, geology, and linguistics, but was honored in none of these fields during his lifetime. An outcast in the American scientific community, his submissions were automatically rejected by leading journals.
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