The membership fee is at the members' discretion and is tax-deductible. The minimum membership fee is:

• Euro 25,- for individuals and corporate bodies
• Euro 10,- for students

Hugo Obermaier was born as the son of the Royal School Inspector (Kgl. Schulrat), Anton Obermaier, in Regensburg, Germany on 29 January 1877. After finishing school and graduating from university in his home town, he was ordained a secular priest in 1900.
From 1901 - 1904 he studied prehistoric archaeology, physical geography, geology, palaeontology, ethnology, German philology and human anatomy under Penck, Forster, Szombathy, Hoernes and others in Vienna. In 1904 he did his Ph.D. with a thesis on "Man's habitat during the Ice Age in Central Europe". After qualifying as an university lecturer in Vienna in 1908 he became a private lecturer in this city in 1909. During this time he travelled through different countries in Europe, which won him many friends and often lasting friendships with some of the leading prehistorians of his time. In 1911 Obermaier, together with Henri Breuil, was appointed to the vacant chair at the newly founded Institut de Paléontologie Humaine to Paris. He was taken unawares by the beginning of the First World War in Spain in 1914. Being a German, he was no longer able to return to Paris. Obermaier stayed in Spain where at first he worked at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid; in 1922 he received the chair of human prehistory as an associate professor at the Universidad Central in Madrid. In 1933, after thorough consideration, he declined a respectable offer for Max Ebert's vacant chair at the University Berlin, because the move to Berlin would have separated him too far both from his second home in Spain where he had become a naturalized citizen, and his actual field of research. Moreover, he anticipated the catastrophe of National Socialism. The beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 surprised Obermaier, who at the time was in Oslo, where he represented his country at the Congrès International d' Archéologie Préhistorique et Protohistorique. In 1939, despite all his friends´ efforts, especially those of the Duke of Alba, to win him over for Madrid again, Obermaier decided to accept a professorship in Freiburg/Switzerland and not to return to Spain. His poor state of health, the unresolved question of his old age pension in Spain and the fact that his student Martínez Santa Olalla was publicly laying claim to his chair and he did not want to compete with him led him to make this decision, albeit with a heavy heart. On 12 November 1964 Obermaier died after long illness in the Freiburg Salesanium. He was buried there with all honours and rested in peace until the authorities dissolved his grave. Today, only a plaque at the University of Freiburg, dedicated by the Hugo Obermaier Society in 1986, reminds us of this scholar who never actually found a permanent home anywhere.

For many years, Palaeolithic research was little acknowledged in Germany although men like J. Ranke, R.R. Schmidt, H. Obermaier and G. Riek had done a lot for it. To create a suitable forum for this extremely important part of human history, Lothar F. Zotz founded the "Hugo Obermaier Society for research into the Ice Age and its cultures" on 23 June 1951 at the University Regensburg, Obermaier´s native town, on the occasion of the festival week of the University Regensburg circle of friends.
"In addition to cultivating and furthering academic research, following in the footsteps of Hugo Obermaier, the most important Old Stone Age academic expert in Germany and one of the leading ones in the world, the Society wants to particularly maintain relations with foreign experts in this field in the spirit of the late H. Obermaier." (Quartär 5, 1951, 149). During the first annual conference of the Society in Regensburg in April 1952, L.F. Zotz, supported by his student, Gisela Freund, was already able to bring together a number of academic experts and amateurs interested in the Stone Age history of mankind for a fruitful exchange of ideas. Attendees included, among others, prehistorians, geologists, palaeontologists and anthropologists.
It soon became clear that a restriction to the Ice Age alone would be pointless given the fact that there are several historico-cultural overlaps and connections in the early Postglacial period at the turning point from the Mesolithic Age to the Neolithic Age. For that reason, in 1956 the Society changed its name to the one it retains today: "Hugo Obermaier-Society for the Study of the Pleistocene and Associated Stone Age Cultures."

In the early years conferences and excursions abroad alternated regularly. At a time when Europe was still deeply marked by the effects of WW II and travelling was the privilege of only a few, these journeys were very popular. They gave people the opportunity to visit the historical sites of discoveries, guided by local experts. For most Germans this had been impossible for many years. As mobility increased the interest in these trips declined so much that the Society discontinued the excursions in 1973. Ever since congresses have been held only in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. After the first hard years the Hugo Obermaier-Society is now one of the leading bodies of German-speaking research into the Palaeolithic. Today, it is able to pursue the aims set in 1951 better than ever before.

Christian Züchner, Erlangen