Juan Luis Arsuaga
Encyclopedia
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
) obtained a master degree and a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
in Biological Sciences
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he is professor in the Paleontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
Department of the Faculty of Geological Sciences.
As a child he already showed a great interest in prehistory
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
after reading Quest for Fire
Quest for Fire
Quest for Fire is a 1911 Belgian novel by "J.-H. Rosny", the pseudonym of two brothers; the author was likely the elder of the two, Joseph Henri Honoré Boex . It was first published in English in 1967....
and visiting a dig in nearby Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
.
Arsuaga is a visiting professor of the Department of Anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
at the University College of London and since 1982 he has been a member of the Research Team investigating Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
deposits in the Atapuerca Mountains (Province of Burgos, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
). He has been a co-director since 1991 with José María Bermúdez de Castro and Eudald Carbonell Roura of the Atapuerca Team, which was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Scientific and Technical Research and the Castilla León Prize for the Social Sciences and Humanities, both in 1997. The finds at Atapuerca
Atapuerca
The Atapuerca Mountains is an ancient karstic region of Spain, in the province of Burgos and near Atapuerca and Ibeas de Juarros. It contains several caves, where fossils and stone tools of the earliest known Hominins in West Europe have been found. The earliest hominids may have dated to 1.2...
have shed new light on the first humans in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. This contrasts with the secretive atmosphere surrounding the digs to near Orce
Orce
Orce is a municipality located in the province of Granada, in southeastern Spain. According to the 2009 census , the city has a population of 1333 inhabitants.- Significance in Paleoanthropology :...
, in southern Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, which has yielded tools indicating human presence that predate the finds at Atapuerca
Atapuerca
The Atapuerca Mountains is an ancient karstic region of Spain, in the province of Burgos and near Atapuerca and Ibeas de Juarros. It contains several caves, where fossils and stone tools of the earliest known Hominins in West Europe have been found. The earliest hominids may have dated to 1.2...
.
A member of the Museum of Man
Museum of Man
The Museum of Man may refer to:* Musée de l'Homme , Paris, France* San Diego Museum of Man, anthropology and pre-Columbian museum in San Diego, California...
from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, of the International Association for the Study of Human Paleontology, he is vice-president of the Commission of Human Paleontology and Paleoecology of the International Union Quaternary Research (INQUA). He has been a lecturer at the universities of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, Zurich
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy....
, Rome, Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, Philadelphia, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, New York
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Tel Aviv, among others.
He authored and/or published several scientific publications in Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
, Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
, Journal of Archaeological Science, American Journal of Physical Anthropology
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
The American Journal of Physical Anthropology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal and the official journal of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists...
, and Journal of Human Evolution
Journal of Human Evolution
The Journal of Human Evolution is a peer-reviewed scientific Journal. It is published monthly by Elsevier in print and online on ScienceDirect. The Journal was started in 1972, currently it is in its 56th volume. The current editors are David Begun, Mark Teaford, and Steven Leigh...
.