Jean-Jacques Hublin
Encyclopedia
Jean-Jacques Hublin is a French
Paleoanthropologist
. Currently, he is a Professor at the Max Planck Society
, Leiden University
and the University of Leipzig
and the founder and director of the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
in Leipzig
, Germany. He is best known for his work on the Pleistocene
hominins
, and on the Neandertals and early Homo sapiens, in particular.
until his family fled the country in the last year of the independence war in 1961. He spent his teenage years living in the subsidized housing of the northern Paris
ian suburbs. He later trained as a geologist and paleontologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University
of Paris, where he received his doctorate in 1978 under the supervision of Prof. B. Vandermeersch. He received his state doctorate (habilitation
) in anthropology in 1991 at the University of Bordeaux
. Hublin currently lives in Leipzig, Germany with his wife Svetlana.
, the National Natural History Museum
in Paris, and the CNRS, Hublin became Director of Research at the CNRS. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of California - Berkeley in 1992, a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University
in 1997, and a Visiting Professor at Stanford University
in 1999. In 2000, he was hired as a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Bordeaux I. In 2004, he became Professor at the Max Planck Society (Germany) and moved to Leipzig to found the Department of Human Evolution at the newly created Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
. In 2005, he was made Honorary Professor at the University of Leipzig. Hublin has had several administrative positions at various points in his career, and in particular, was Deputy Director in charge of the Prehistoric Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, and Paleoenvironmental Sciences sector of the French CNRS in 2002-2003. Currently, Hublin is one of the Directors of the MPI-EVA in Leipzig.
, Spain
). He is best known for having proposed the ‘accretion model’ for the emergence of the Neandertals, a model that emphasizes the role of the environment
, demographic fluctuations, and genetic drift
in recent human evolution. This model has found much support in subsequent paleogenetical works.
, where he has been conducting fieldwork for several years. In particular, at the site of Jebel Irhoud
(Morocco
), he has discovered important new fossil hominins, which document the emergence of our species more than 150,000 years ago and reveal that early Homo sapiens were not only represented in sub-Saharan Africa.
(France), provided evidence for the late survival of Neandertals in Europe
after the arrival of modern humans and the beginning of a genuinely “Upper Paleolithic” culture on the continent. He was one of the first to promote the “acculturation hypothesis”, which seeks to explain the cultural evolution of the latest western Neandertals through the distant influence of the first modern populations already present in central Europe.
from multiple pieces. Since then, he has further developed these techniques which provide new insights into the understanding of the anatomical
evolution, cognitive development
, and life history of our ancestors and their extinct relatives. His group provided new evidence on diverse issues such as the timing of brain development in early representatives of the genus Homo, the birth process of Neandertals, and the dental development of early Homo sapiens and Neandertals.
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
Paleoanthropologist
Paleoanthropology
Paleoanthropology, which combines the disciplines of paleontology and physical anthropology, is the study of ancient humans as found in fossil hominid evidence such as petrifacted bones and footprints.-19th century:...
. Currently, he is a Professor at the Max Planck Society
Max Planck Society
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes publicly funded by the federal and the 16 state governments of Germany....
, Leiden University
Leiden University
Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...
and the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
and the founder and director of the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network....
in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany. He is best known for his work on the 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 ....
hominins
Hominini
Hominini is the tribe of Homininae that comprises Homo, and the two species of the genus Pan , their ancestors, and the extinct lineages of their common ancestor . Members of the tribe are called hominins...
, and on the Neandertals and early Homo sapiens, in particular.
Personal life and education
Hublin lived in AlgeriaAlgeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
until his family fled the country in the last year of the independence war in 1961. He spent his teenage years living in the subsidized housing of the northern 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...
ian suburbs. He later trained as a geologist and paleontologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University
Pierre and Marie Curie University
The Paris VI University , or the Pierre and Marie Curie University , is a university located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France....
of Paris, where he received his doctorate in 1978 under the supervision of Prof. B. Vandermeersch. He received his state doctorate (habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
) in anthropology in 1991 at the University of Bordeaux
University of Bordeaux
University of Bordeaux is an association of higher education institutions in and around Bordeaux, France. Its current incarnation was established 21 March 2007. The group is the largest system of higher education schools in southwestern France. It is part of the Academy of Bordeaux.There are seven...
. Hublin currently lives in Leipzig, Germany with his wife Svetlana.
Career
After being hired as a researcher with the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1981 and working in different departments at the University of ParisUniversity of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
, the National Natural History Museum
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.- History :The museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution...
in Paris, and the CNRS, Hublin became Director of Research at the CNRS. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of California - Berkeley in 1992, a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1997, and a Visiting Professor at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in 1999. In 2000, he was hired as a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Bordeaux I. In 2004, he became Professor at the Max Planck Society (Germany) and moved to Leipzig to found the Department of Human Evolution at the newly created Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network....
. In 2005, he was made Honorary Professor at the University of Leipzig. Hublin has had several administrative positions at various points in his career, and in particular, was Deputy Director in charge of the Prehistoric Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, and Paleoenvironmental Sciences sector of the French CNRS in 2002-2003. Currently, Hublin is one of the Directors of the MPI-EVA in Leipzig.
Scientific work
Hublin has dedicated most of his career to the study of Middle and Late Pleistocene hominins, and in particular, to the biological and cultural evolution of Neandertals and to the origin of modern humans. He has also conducted fieldwork in various sites in Europe and North Africa.The origin of the Neandertals
Hublin’s research initially focused on the origin of Neandertals, and in early 1980s, he used cladistic methods to demonstrate that this extinct lineage of humans was rooted much earlier than was thought at the time. He demonstrated that none of the European fossil material predating 40,000 years ago could be related to modern human ancestry. His views on Neandertal evolution were later fully confirmed by various discoveries, in particular, by the spectacular discovery of the fossil series from Sima de los Huesos (AtapuercaAtapuerca
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...
, 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 is best known for having proposed the ‘accretion model’ for the emergence of the Neandertals, a model that emphasizes the role of the environment
Environment (biophysical)
The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...
, demographic fluctuations, and genetic drift
Genetic drift
Genetic drift or allelic drift is the change in the frequency of a gene variant in a population due to random sampling.The alleles in the offspring are a sample of those in the parents, and chance has a role in determining whether a given individual survives and reproduces...
in recent human evolution. This model has found much support in subsequent paleogenetical works.
North Africa and the origin of Homo sapiens
Another major focus of his research is on the origin of modern humans in Africa, specifically North AfricaNorth Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
, where he has been conducting fieldwork for several years. In particular, at the site of Jebel Irhoud
Jebel Irhoud
Jebel Irhoud is an archaeological cave site located near Sidi Moktar, about 100 km west of Marrakesh, Morocco. Since circa 1991 7 significant hominid fossils have been discovered, and are currently dated to circa 160,000 years ago. The fossils include portions of two adult skulls , a child’s...
(Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
), he has discovered important new fossil hominins, which document the emergence of our species more than 150,000 years ago and reveal that early Homo sapiens were not only represented in sub-Saharan Africa.
The fate of Neandertals
Hublin's demonstration that modern behaviors were present in the very last Neandertals was a major contribution to the field. His work on Late Neandertal sites, such as those of Zafarraya (Spain) and Arcy-sur-CureArcy-sur-Cure
Arcy-sur-Cure is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France.The caves of Arcy-sur-Cure just south of the commune, hold the second-oldest cave paintings known, after those of Chauvet Cave. Archeological remains at the Grotte de Renne were taken to provide evidence that...
(France), provided evidence for the late survival of Neandertals 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...
after the arrival of modern humans and the beginning of a genuinely “Upper Paleolithic” culture on the continent. He was one of the first to promote the “acculturation hypothesis”, which seeks to explain the cultural evolution of the latest western Neandertals through the distant influence of the first modern populations already present in central Europe.
Virtual paleoanthropology
In 1992, Hublin published the first application of virtual manipulation for the reconstruction of a human fossilFossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
from multiple pieces. Since then, he has further developed these techniques which provide new insights into the understanding of the anatomical
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
evolution, cognitive development
Cognitive development
Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology compared to an adult's point of...
, and life history of our ancestors and their extinct relatives. His group provided new evidence on diverse issues such as the timing of brain development in early representatives of the genus Homo, the birth process of Neandertals, and the dental development of early Homo sapiens and Neandertals.
External links
- http://www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/staff/hublin/index.htm
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3QI5PnmesY
- http://www.exploratorium.edu/webcasts/explotv_player.php?id=00001086&type=flv
- http://jahresthema.bbaw.de/mediathek/akademievorlesungen/AV_1_Hublin.flv/view