Laufer was born in Cologne in Germany to Max and Eugenie Laufer (née Schlesinger). His paternal grandparents Salomon and Johanna Laufer were adherents of the Jewish faith. Laufer had a brother Heinrich (died 10 July 1935) who worked as a physician in Cairo.
Laufer attended the Friedrich Wilhelms Gymnasium from 1884-1893. He continued his studies in Berlin (1893–1895) and completed his doctorate degree at the University of Leipzig in 1897. The following year he emigrated to the United States where he remained until his death. He carried out ethnographic fieldwork on the Amur River and Sakhalin Island during 1898-1899 as part of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition.
He worked as assistant in Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History (1904–1906), became a lecturer in Anthropology and East-Asiatic Languages at Columbia University (1905–1907). The rest of his career he spent at the Field Museum in Chicago. He served as the president of the History of Science Society in 1932.
Laufer died on September 13, 1934 after falling from the 8th floor fire escape of the Chicago Beach Hotel in Chicago, where he lived. He had been recovering from the removal of a tumor at the time, but his widow claimed he was in good spirits, and the Coroner's jury returned an undetermined verdict.
From "Lasting Impressions: Chinese Rubbings from the Field Museum" Brochure (The Field Museum of Chicago):
In addition to his studies in Chinese culture as such, Laufer used his knowledge of ancient Chinese writings to shed light on ancient Iran. Very little writings have survived from ancient Iran. Surviving ancient Chinese writings contain valuable information about ancient Iran, which Laufer was the first to study systematically, and which he published as Sino-Iranica: Chinese contributions to the history of civilization in ancient Iran, with special reference to the history of cultivated plants and products (1919).
Written in English
1899 Ethnological work on the island of Sakhalin
1899 Petroglyphs on the Amoor
1900 Preliminary notes on explorations among the Amoor tribes
1902 The decorative art of the Amur tribes, Volume 7, Part 1
1905 Historical jottings on amber in Asia
1906 The Bird-Chariot in China and Europe
1907 A Plea for the Study of the History of Medicine and Natural Sciences
1907 A theory of the origin of Chinese writing
1907 Note on the introduction of the groundnut into China
1907 The introduction of maize into eastern Asia
1907 The relations of the Chinese to the Philippine Islands
1907 W. W. Newell and the lyrics of Li-T'ai-Po
1908 Origin of Our Dances of Death
1908 The Jonah legend in India
1911 Chinese grave-sculptures of the Han period
1911 Jade
1911 King Tsing, the Author of the Nestorian Inscription
1912 Chinese pottery in the Philippines
1911 The Introduction of Vaccination Into the Far East
1912 Fish Symbols in China (Illustrated)
1912 Foreword to "Catalogue of a selection of art objects from the Freer collection exhibited in the new building of the National museum, April 15 to June 15, 1912"
1912 The Chinese Madonna in the Field Museum
1913 Descriptive account of the collection of Chinese, Tibetan, Mongol, and Japanese books in the Newberry Library
1913 Remarks on "Some aspects of North American Archaeology" by Roland B. Dixon (pp.573-574 of American Anthropologist vol.15 Issue 4
1913 Notes on Turquois In The East
1913 The Application of the Tibetan Sexagenary Cycle
1913 The Chinese Battle of the Fishes (With Illustration)
1913 The Praying Mantis in Chinese Folklore (Illustrated)
1914 Bird divination among the Tibetans (notes on document Pelliot no 3530, with a study of Tibetan phonology of the ninth century)
1914 Chinese clay figures
1914 Some Fundamental Ideas of Chinese Culture
1915 The diamond
1915 The Eskimo Screw as a Culture-Historical Problem
1915 The Story of the Pinna and the Syrian Lamb
1915 Two Chinese Imperial Jades
1916 Burkhan
1916 Cardan's Suspension in China
1916 Loan-words in Tibetan
1916 The Nichols Mo-So Manuscript
1917 Concerning the History of Finger-Prints
1917 Moccasins
1917 Origin of the Word Shaman
1917 Religious and artistic thought in ancient China
1917 The Beginnings of Porcelain in China, 1917
1917 The language of the Yüe-chi or Indo-Scythians
1917 The reindeer and its domestication
1917 The Vigesimal and Decimal Systems in the Ainu Numerals: With Some Remarks on Ainu Phonology
1917 Totemic Traces among the Indo-Chinese
1918 Origin of Tibetan Writing
1918 The Chinese Exhibition
1919 Coca and betel-chewing: A query
1919 Sino-Iranica; Chinese contributions to the history of civilization in ancient Iran, with special reference to the history of cultivated plants and products
1920 Multiple Births among the Chinese
1920 The reindeer once more
1920 Sex transformation and hermaphrodites in China
1922 Archaic Chinese bronzes: of the Shang, Chou and Han periods, in the collections of Mr. Parish-Watson
1922 Preface to "Japanese collections : Frank W. Gunsaulus Hall" by Helen C. Gunsaulus
1922 The Chinese gateway
1923 Use of Human Skulls and bones in Tibet
1924 Introduction of tobacco into Europe
1924 Tobacco and its use in Asia
1925 Chinese Baskets
1925 Ivory in China
1926 Ostrich Egg-Shell Cups from Mesopotamia
1927 Agate, archaeology and folklore
1927 Insect-Musicians and Cricket Champions of China
1928 The Giraffe in History and Art
1928 The prehistory of aviation
1928 The prehistory of television
1930 A Chinese-Hebrew Manuscript, a new Source for the History of the Chinese Jews
1930 Geophagy
1930 The early history of felt
1930 Tobacco and its use in Africa
1931 Columbus and Cathay, and the Meaning of America to the Orientalist
1931 Paper and Printing in Ancient China
1931 The domestication of the cormorant in China and Japan
1931 Tobacco in New Guinea
1932 A Defender of the Faith and his Miracles
1932 Sino-American Points of Contact
1933 East and West
1933 Preface to "The races of mankind: an introduction to Chauncey Keep Memorial Hall"
1933 The Jehol pagoda model(Field Museum News Vol.4 April 1933 No.4 p.1)
1933 Turtle Island
1934 Chinese Muhammadan bronzes
1934 Etruscans (Field Museum News Vol.5 January 1934 No.1 p.2)
1934 Rare Chinese brush-holder (Field Museum News Vol.5 June 1934 No.6 p.4)
1934 The Chinese imperial gold collection
1934 The Lemon in China and Elsewhere
1934 The Noria or Persian Wheel
1934 The Swing in China
1935 Rye in the Far East and the Asiatic Origin of Our Word Series "Rye"
1938 The American plant migration. The potato
1939 Christian art in China
Written in French
1905 Anneaux nasaux en Chine
1916 The Si-hia language: A Study in Indo-Chinese Philology
1917 La Mandragore
1918 Malabathron
1922 Sanskrit Karketana
Written in German
1898 Blumen, die unter den Tritten von Menschen hervorsprossen
1898 Über eine Gattung mongolischer Volkslieder und ihre Verwandtschaft mit türkischen Liedern
1898-1899 Ueber das va zur. Ein Beitrag zur Phonetik der tibetischen Sprache: part 1part 2part 3
1908 Skizze der manjurischen Literatur
1907 Zur Geschichte der Brille
Collections
Kleinere Schriften von Berthold Laufer. Hartmut Walravens, editor, Sinologica Coloniensia; Ostasiatische Beiträge der Universität zu Köln, Bde. 2, 7, 13. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden, 1976-1992 (3 Volumes). A collection of many of his essays and many relevant documents.
Sino-Tibetan Studies. Hartmut Walravens and Lokesh Chandra, eds., 2 Vols., Rakesh Goel, New Delhi, 1987.
