Yves Coppens
Coppens in 2008
Born(1934-08-09)9 August 1934
Vannes, France
Died22 June 2022(2022-06-22) (aged 87)
Paris, France
Alma materUniversity of Rennes
University of Paris
Known forCo-discovery of "Lucy"[1]
AwardsGrand Officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honour

Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit of France
Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters of France
Commander of the Order of Academic Palms of France
Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit of Monaco

Officer of the National Order of Chad
Kalinga Prize (1984)

Yves Coppens (9 August 1934 – 22 June 2022)[1] was a French anthropologist and co-discoverer of "Lucy"[1]. A graduate from the University of Rennes and the Sorbonne, he studied ancient hominids and had multiple published works on this topic, and also produced a film. In October 2014, Coppens was named an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by Pope Francis.[2]

Scientific work

He was Professor at the College de France, which is considered to be France's most prestigious research establishment.[3][4]

Richard Dawkins makes the following observation in The Ancestor's Tale: "Incidentally, I don't know what to make of the fact that in his native France, Yves Coppens is widely cited as the discoverer of Lucy, even as the 'father' of Lucy. In the English-speaking world, this important discovery is universally attributed to Donald Johanson". This confusion is because Coppens was the former director of the Hadar expedition. Donald Johanson, who led the 1974 expedition, was the one who found Lucy.[5] The "Rift Valley theory", proposed and supported by the Dutch primatologist Adriaan Kortlandt,[6] became better known when it was later espoused and renamed by Coppens as the "East Side Story". However, this paradigm has been challenged by the discovery of Australopithecus bahrelghazali (Abel) and by the discovery of Sahelanthropus tchadensis by Michel Brunet's team in Toumaï in Chad (2,500 km to west Rift Valley).[7][8]

The main-belt asteroid 172850 Coppens was named in his honour.[9] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 21 March 2008 (M.P.C. 62357).[10]

Coppens advised on the French film Une Femme ou Deux (English: One Woman or Two; 1985).[11]

Academies

Yves Coppens was a member of the French Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Medicine, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of Vatican, the French Outremer Academy of Sciences, the Academia Europaea, the Royal Academy of Sciences Hassan II of Morocco, the African Academy of Sciences, Arts, Cultures and Diasporas of Côte d'Ivoire, Honorary Member of the São Paulo Academy of Medicine, Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium, correspondent of the Royal Belgian Academy of Medicine, honorary member of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, foreign associate of the Royal Society of South Africa.

Death

Coppens died in Paris on 22 June 2022 at the age of 87.[12][13]

Awards

Doctorate honoris causa

Charter of environment

Yves Coppens chaired the commission which wrote the French Charter for the Environment of 2004, now part of the French Constitution.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Pitts, Mike (4 July 2022). "Yves Coppens obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
  2. ↑ "Rinunce e nomine" [Renunciations and appointments]. press.vatican.va (in Italian). 18 October 2014. Archived from the original on 22 October 2014.
  3. ↑ Appelrouth, Scott; Edles, Laura Desfor (2008). Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory: Text and Readings. Pine Forge Press. p. 641. ISBN 9780761927938. OCLC 1148204416.
  4. ↑ John Culbert (2011). Paralyses: Literature, Travel, and Ethnography in French Modernity. U of Nebraska Press. p. 257. ISBN 978-0803234192.
  5. ↑ Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind: 1981 by Johanson & Edey
  6. ↑ Kortlandt, A. (1972) - New perspectives on ape and human evolution, Amsterdam, Stichting voor Psychobiologie.
  7. ↑ 2. Brunet, M. (1997) - « Origine des hominidés : East Side Story... West Side Story... », Géobios, M.S. n ° 20, 79–83
  8. ↑ 3.Brunet, M., Guy, F., Pilbeam, D., Mackaye, H. T., Likius, A. et al. (2002) - "A new hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad, Central Africa", Nature, vol. 418, 11 July 2002, pp. 145–151.
  9. ↑ "172850 Coppens (2005 EU27)". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  10. ↑ "MPC/MPO/MPS Archive". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  11. ↑ David Howard Day (1997). A Treasure Hard to Attain; Images of Archaeology in Popular Film, with a Filmography
  12. ↑ "Yves Coppens obituary". The Times. 24 June 2022. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
  13. ↑ "Yves Coppens, codécouvreur de Lucy et visage de la paléontologie française, est mort". Le Monde (in French). 22 June 2022. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  14. ↑ Décret du 14 novembre 2016 portant élévation aux dignités de grand'croix et de grand officier
  15. ↑ "Yves Coppens, élevé à la dignité de grand'croix dans l'Ordre national du Mérite". academie-sciences.fr.
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