Où, quand, pourquoi, comment est apparu l'Homme ?

Video conference on Monday, February 15, 2021, with paleontologist Yves Coppens. Research on the origins of humankind dates back to the 19th century; fossil human remains were discovered in Europe, then in Asia, and finally in Africa. The origin of humankind was thus moved from one continent to another until it settled in tropical Africa. Sixty years of international research in this region have allowed us to map a phylogenetic tree of humankind going back approximately 10 million years, with a large number of branches. With --- Yves Coppens, a paleontologist who spent his entire career in Paris, successively at the Sorbonne (Laboratory of Vertebrate Paleontology and Human Paleontology, 1956), the National Museum of Natural History (Institute of Paleontology, 1957), the Musée de l'Homme (Laboratory of Biological Anthropology, 1969), and the Collège de France (Chair of Paleoanthropology and Prehistory, 1983). He held two chairs, one at the Museum and one at the Collège de France. He was also elected to the French Academy of Sciences of the Institut de France (1983) and to the National Academy of Medicine (1991). A field paleontologist, he organized, alone or in collaboration, major international expeditions beginning in 1960, in Africa (Chad, Ethiopia) and Asia (China, Mongolia, Russia). He brought back tons of vertebrate fossils, including several new species of crocodiles, hippos, proboscideans, and hominids. He described and named or co-named three new genera and six new species of hominids. It was the environmental significance of all these vertebrates that allowed him to discover and describe the correlation between climate change and the emergence of humankind (1975); humans, he argued, arose from the need to adapt to drought. To learn more --- All lectures:    • Conférences et cours publics   On biological anthropology:    • Anthropologie biologique   On evolution:    • Évolution   Credits --- © MNHN, 2021 Thumbnail image: Cast of the skeleton of Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis © MNHN - A. Iatzoura With the support of the Friends of the Musée de l'Homme.