Yves Coppens

Yves Coppens (born 9 August 1934) is a Breton anthropologist and co-discoverer of the fossil known as "Lucy".[1] A graduate from the University of Rennes and Sorbonne, he has studied ancient hominids and has had multiple published works on this topic, and has also produced a film. On Saturday, 18 October 2014, Professor Coppens was named an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by Pope Francis.[2]

Yves Coppens
Yves Coppens in November 2006
Born (1934-08-09) 9 August 1934
Vannes, France
NationalityFrench
Alma materUniversity of Rennes
University of Paris
Known forCo-discovery of "Lucy"
AwardsGrand Officer 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

Scientific work

Coppens is one of the co-discoverers of Lucy along with Donald Johanson and Maurice Taieb.[1]

He is currently 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 lead 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 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.[1] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 21 March 2008 (M.P.C. 62357).[9]

Academies

Yves Coppens is 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.

Awards

Doctorat honoris causa

Charter of environnement

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. "172850 Coppens (2005 EU27)". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  2. "Rinunce e nomine" [Renunciations and appointments]. press.vatican.va (in Italian). 18 October 2014. Archived from the original on 22 October 2014.
  3. Scott Appelrouth, Laura Desfor Edles (2008). Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory: Text and Readings. Pine Forge Press. p. 641.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  4. John Culbert (2011). Paralyses: Literature, Travel, and Ethnography in French Modernity. U of Nebraska Press. p. 257.
  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. "MPC/MPO/MPS Archive". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  10. Décret du 14 novembre 2016 portant élévation aux dignités de grand'croix et de grand officier
  11. "Yves Coppens, élevé à la dignité de grand'croix dans l'Ordre national du Mérite". academie-sciences.fr.
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