Eudald Carbonell Roura (Girona, 1953) is Professor of Prehistory at the URV of Tarragona, Co-director of the Atapuerca Project and Vice President of the Atapuerca Foundation.
His most outstanding scientific milestones are the creation of a system to analyze prehistoric technology called “logical-analytical system” and his studies on the ancient settlements of the Iberian Peninsula. These lines of work led him to develop a multidisciplinary research program in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos).
Great prehistorians like Carbonell, with years dedicated to research by thousands of professionals, have allowed us to polish the image we have about Neanderthals little by little. To begin with, we must banish the infamous myth that Neanderthals were brutalized and unsophisticated . On the contrary, experts in the field have been able to discover interesting details about how their societies were formed, through the study, not only of fossil remains, but also of their tools and tools.
Eudald Carbonell has been researching Neanderthals for 42 years . “It is an indescribable sensation to make a discovery when you dedicate your entire life in search of it.”
During his lecture at the Homo Curiosus outreach event, he made us share some curiosities about Neanderthals; for example, that they had a great capacity to establish social networks ; They were robust, short, and the species that has had the largest brain in all of history.
Furthermore, Carbonell tells us with satisfaction how Homo sapiens is an important mixture of different species of Homo . “This is a great story; I am very happy of my Neanderthal part”, and concludes like this: “We have evidence that Neanderthals were as human as we are.”
Our next step on the planet will be diversity. Eudald Carbonell bets that in the XXII and XXIII centuries there will be a diversity of Homo species, modified, either by the CRISPR technique, or by the addition of bionic systems; all this combined with our expansion through the solar system.
About Eudald Carbonell
He is the author of a large number of works, among others, the article published in the journal Science, together with other members of the Atapuerca team, with the title A Hominid from the Lower pléistocène of Atapuerca, Spain: possible Ancestor to Neanderthales and Modern Humans (1997), in which he presented the Homo ancestor, which he placed at a date well before the establishment of hominids in Europe.
Eudald Carbonell participated in Homo Curiosus, the scientific outreach event of the year, with a fascinating talk about the early stages of hominids, accompanied by the documentary The First Man.
Documentary The First Man
Thirty million years ago, a new group of creatures appeared on Earth. Endowed with exceptional abilities, the great apes changed our world forever and, standing tall, dominated the forests that stretched from Europe to Asia. They founded a new form of social life, created a language and passed their knowledge on to their children. Little by little they developed hunting and tools to improve their skills. The first ancestors of man were ready to conquer the world, to explore the unknown, to adapt to each environment. And one day, the discovery of fire made them invincible. Join us on an epic journey in which we recreate the origins of humanity through one of those first hominid families.
