Fascinated by prehistory since childhood, Yves Coppens, born in Vannes in 1934, began his career as a researcher with several excavation and survey projects in Brittany during his middle school, high school, and college years (he pursued graduate studies in natural sciences in Rennes and doctoral studies in paleontology at Paris-Sorbonne).
After joining the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1956, he turned his attention to ancient periods and distant lands—specifically, the boundaries between the Tertiary and Quaternary periods in the tropical regions of the Old World. Beginning from 1960 onward, he led major expeditions—first alone in Chad, then as part of international collaborations in Ethiopia (the Omo Valley and the Afar Basin)—as well as numerous missions in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, South Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Siberia, and Mongolia. The finds from these expeditions were substantial: dozens of metric tons of fossils, including more than a thousand hominid remains; the results of their study would prove fascinating. The history of the last ten million years is becoming clearer; one hypothesis proposes an environmental explanation for the divergence of Hominidae and Panidae 8 million years ago (Coppens, 1983), another offers an explanation for the initial spread of the Australopithecines 4 million years ago (Coppens, 1999), and yet another provides an explanation for the emergence of the genus Homo 3 million years ago (Coppens, 1975); these three stages follow one another in a cluster or spike-like pattern, forming distinct clusters, each of which, at its base, gives rise to the next, yet subsequently develops its own lineage in an original and independent manner (Coppens, 1975). Finally, Yves Coppens demonstrated—drawing on the differing rates of evolution in biology and technology—how acquired traits gradually prevailed over innate ones, granting humans their freedom and responsibility, and why, over the past 100,000 years, human evolution has slowed and then come to a halt (Coppens 1982, 1988). In conjunction with the most recent discoveries in Paleoanthropology (Chad, Kenya), Yves Coppens is now a co-author on six new hominid species (a unique world record!).
During those years, Yves Coppens rose through the ranks of the CNRS before being appointed, in 1969, deputy director of the Musée de l’Homme (his first professorship), and in 1979, its director. Appointed full professor at the National Museum of Natural History and holder of the Chair of Anthropology in 1980, he held these new positions for only three years before being elected to the Chair of Paleoanthropology and Prehistory at the Collège de France in 1983. Active in numerous national and international bodies overseeing his fields of expertise, Yves Coppens directed a laboratory, numerous research programs in Africa and Asia, and two CNRS book series. He authored more than a thousand articles and books on his discipline.
Yves Coppens passed away on June 22, 2022.
