Emiliano Aguirre Explained

Emiliano Aguirre
Birth Name:Emiliano Aguirre Enríquez
Birth Date:5 October 1925
Birth Place:Ferrol, A Coruña, Spain
Death Place:Burgos, Spain
Field:Paleontologist
Known For:Beginning the study of Atapuerca sites

Emiliano Aguirre Enríquez (5 October 1925 – 11 October 2021) was a Spanish paleontologist, known for his works at archaeological site of Atapuerca, whose excavations he directed from 1978 until his retirement in 1990. He received the Prince of Asturias Award in 1997.

Biography

Aguirre was born in Ferrol, Galicia, on 5 October 1925. He studied humanities and philosophy at the Facultad Eclesiástica de Alcalá, natural sciences at the University of Madrid in 1955, and theology at the University of Granada. He was a former Jesuit with a PhD in biological sciences with a thesis on extinct elephants, supervised by Miquel Crusafont i Pairó.[1] [2]

Between 1955 and 1956, Aguirre was a prospector of dinosaur sites in the, where he helped excavating the remains of Abditosaurus, and a prospector and discoverer of thirty new marine and continental Cenozoic sites in Granada between 1956 and 1961.

Aguirre's first excavations were carried out in the 1960s. Between 1961 and 1963, he excavated, together with Francis Clark Howell, the paleontological site of Torralba and Ambrona, using new multidisciplinary methodologies.[3] In 1963, he designed the Arbona Museum, the first museum with in situ exhibition of fossil remains in Europe.[4] In 1963, he was part of the Spanish Mission of Archaeological Salvage in Nubia, in which he studied the human remains at the necropolis of Argin (Sudan). In 1968, thanks to a postdoctoral fellowship from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, he traveled to South Africa to study early hominid fossils and to Kenya to excavate in the Tugen Hills with the archaeologist Louis Leakey.

Aguirre joined the Spanish National Research Council as a researcher in 1974, and left the Society of Jesus.

Between 1978 and 1982, Aguirre was a professor of paleontology at the University of Zaragoza and at the Complutense University of Madrid between 1982 and 1984. On 24 May 2000, he was sworn in as an honorary academic of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, a position he held until his death.[5] He supervised 26 doctoral theses.

Aguirre was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts and History 'Institución Fernán González'.[6]

Dissemination of evolutionary theory in Franco's Spain

In the early years of his professional career in the 1950s, Aguirre promoted conferences, meetings, and scientific publications at a time when the national Catholicism of Francisco Franco's regime hindered the dissemination of Charles Darwin's theory.

In 1962, Aguirre published his lecture "Paleontological problems and natural selection",[7] in which he stated his defense of the modern synthetic theory of evolution, as opposed to the theistic dirigiste approaches commonly adopted at the time.[8]

In 1966, the book La Evolución was published by Editorial Católica, in its collection Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos ("B. A. C."), which was a real milestone for the social diffusion of evolutionary ideas in Spain. The work was co-directed by the paleontologists Miguel Crusafont,, and Aguirre, and included articles that covered biological evolution from very different approaches, including Crusafont's orthogenetic dirigiste ideas, but above all, it exposed the synthetic theory, assumed by most of the authors, among whom, besides Aguirre, were Ramón Margalef, Antonio Prevosti, Salustio and Rafael Alvarado, Francisco Bernis or José Antonio Valverde. According to the paleontologist, referring in 2006 to this work: "It took Spanish evolutionary paleontology a little longer than the rest of the evolutionary disciplines to enter modernity. It finally did, thanks to Emiliano Aguirre".

Director of the Atapuerca archaeological site

Aguirre started working in Atapuerca in 1976. Being the first paleontologist to decipher the importance of the archaeological site, Aguirre became its first director in 1978 and remained in this post until 1990, when he resigned and José María Bermúdez de Castro, Juan Luis Arsuaga and Eudald Carbonell took over the role.[9] At that time, science was not much promoted, so he was in charge of training all those who studied Atapuerca.[10]

Personal life and death

Aguirre married Carmen Bule in 1975. He died in Burgos, Spain on 11 October 2021, six days after his 96th birthday.[11]

Honors and awards

Taxa named after him

Honoris causa

Selected works

Notes and References

  1. News: 11 October 2021. Fallece Emiliano Aguirre, el alma mater de Atapuerca. El Mundo. spanish.
  2. News: 13 October 2021. Aguirre, el Teilhard de Chardin gallego. Faro de Vigo. spanish.
  3. News: 12 October 2021. Emiliano Aguirre, figura clave de la paleontología humana. El País. spanish. Antonio. Rosas González.
  4. https://www.mncn.csic.es/docs/2010/07/07/14470001_4_2_1.pdf Sánchez, B.; Pesquero, M. D.; Fraile, S. y Salesa, M. J. (2004). «Las colecciones de Vertebrados fósiles del Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC): aportación del Profesor Emiliano Aguirre a la Paleontología española». Zona arqueológica 4 (2): 526-541.
  5. Web site: Excelentísimo Señor Don Emiliano Aguirre Enríquez. Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Nucleares de España. spanish.
  6. Web site: Miembros de la Institución Fernán González . 2012 . Institución Fernán González . Academia Burgense de Bellas Artes e Historia . 23 March 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20131029192754/http://www.fernangonzalez.org/pgns/pg-academicos001.html . 29 October 2013 . dead .
  7. Aguirre, E. (1962). «Problemática paleontológica y selección natural». Bol. R. Soc.Esp. Hist. Nat. (Biol.) 60: 177-192.
  8. Algunos conceptos básicos en el pasado y presente de la paleontología evolutiva española». Evolución. J.L.. Sanz. spanish.
  9. News: 12 October 2021. Emiliano Aguirre, el ferrolano padre de las excavaciones en Atapuerca que situó a España en la era moderna de la paleontología . La Voz de Galicia. spanish.
  10. News: 11 October 2021. Muere a los 96 años Emiliano Aguirre, primer responsable del proyecto Atapuerca. El Mundo. spanish.
  11. News: 12 October 2021. Muere a los 96 años Emiliano Aguirre, padre de las excavaciones en Atapuerca. La Vanguardia. spanish.
  12. Web site: PREMIO PRÍNCIPE DE ASTURIAS DE INVESTIGACIÓN CIENTÍFICA Y TÉCNICA 1997. Fundación Principe de Asturias. spanish.
  13. News: 11 October 2021. Fallece a los 96 años Emiliano Aguirre, el primer director del proyecto Atapuerca. COPE. spanish. Antonio. Rosas González.
  14. 17 December 1999. Real Decreto 1937/1999, de 17 de diciembre, por el que se concede la Medalla de Oro al Mérito en el Trabajo a don Emiliano Aguirre Enríquez.. Boletín Oficial del Estado. spanish.
  15. Book: Miscelánea en homenaje a Emiliano Aguirre. University of La Rioja. 2004. Museo Arqueológico Regional. 9788445126523. spanish.
  16. 7 June 2008. Miguel Indurain y Emiliano Aguirre dejan sus "huellas" en Arnedo. Rioja 2. spanish.
  17. Web site: Acto Homenaje a Emiliano Aguirre: El Linaje de Emiliano. Teruel, Noviembre 2009 . Spanish National Research Council . spanish.
  18. 15 July 2011. Emiliano Aguirre, Premio Evolución. El Norte de Castilla. spanish.
  19. 27 April 2011. Una calle en el Complejo de la Evolución lleva ya el nombre de Emiliano Aguirre. El Mundo. spanish.
  20. Sondaar, P. (1961). «Les Hipparion de l' Aragón mérdional». Estudios Geológicos, 17: 209-305
  21. Sesé, C. (1977): «Los Cricétidos (Rodentia, Mammalia) de las fisuras del Mioceno medio de Escobosa de Calatañazor(Soria, España)». Trabajos N/Q, 8: 127-180
  22. Adrover, R. (1978): «Les rongeurs et lagomorphes (Mammalia) du Miocene inferieur continental de Navarrete del Rio (Province de Teruel, Espagne)». Documents des Laboratoires de Geologie de la Faculte des Sciences de Lyon, 72: 3-48
  23. Morales, J. (1984). Venta del Moro: su macrofauna de mamíferos y biostratigrafía continental del Mioceno terminal mediterráneo. Editorial Universidad Complutense, Madrid, 340 pp.
  24. Web site: Emiliano de Aguirre Enríquez. University of A Coruña. https://web.archive.org/web/20120218080928/http://www.udc.es/sobreUDC/universidade/honoriscausa/EmilianoAE/. 18 February 2012. spanish.
  25. Web site: D. Emiliano Aguirre. University of Burgos. spanish.
  26. Web site: Hallazgo de Elephas en la terraza media del río Manzanares (Villaverde, Madrid). Dialnet. 18 October 2021. spanish.
  27. Web site: Noticia preliminar sobre el emplazamiento acheulense de Torralba (Soria). Ministry of Culture and Sports. 18 October 2021. spanish.
  28. Book: Une interprétation biomécanique de l'évolution de la région glabellaire dans l'anthropogenèse. WorldCat . 1041424907. 18 October 2021.
  29. Aguirre . Emiliano . Evolutionary History of the Elephant: A tentative phylogeny of Elephantidae based on morphological and quantitative analysis is given. . Science . 20 June 1969 . 164 . 3886 . 1366–1376 . 10.1126/science.164.3886.1366 . 5783707 . 17 October 2021.
  30. Book: Los Vertebrados fósiles de Torralba y Ambrona. WorldCat. 893328453. 18 October 2021.
  31. Book: Nakali: nueva fauna de Hipparion del rift Valley de Kenya. WorldCat. 893328482. 18 October 2021.
  32. Book: Nuevo fósil de Cercopitécido en el Pleistoceno inferior de Puebla de Valverde (Teruel). WorldCat. 893328366. 18 October 2021.
  33. Book: Los Fósiles Humanos de Atapuerca (Burgos): Nota Preliminar. WorldCat. 7180832049. 18 October 2021.
  34. Aguirre . Emiliano . de Lumley . Marie-Antoinette . Fossil men from Atapuerca, Spain: Their bearing on human evolution in the Middle Pleistocene . Journal of Human Evolution . December 1977 . 6 . 8 . 681–688 . 10.1016/S0047-2484(77)80094-8 .
  35. Book: Situación estratigráfica y geocronológica de los primitivos Homínidos fósiles de África. WorldCat. 911971893. 18 October 2021.
  36. Book: Torrijos: nueva fauna con Hispanotherium de la cuenca media del Tajo. WorldCat. 907266942. 18 October 2021.
  37. Web site: Historia de la Paleontología . Crónoica y desarrollo de la Paleontología Humana. Dialnet. 18 October 2021. spanish.
  38. Web site: Mandibules et dents d'Ibeas (Espagne) dans le contexte de l'évolution humaine en Europe. Dialnet. 18 October 2021. spanish.
  39. http://estudiosgeol.revistas.csic.es/index.php/estudiosgeol/article/view/174/174 Restos humanos neandertales de la cueva del Sidrón, Piloña, Asturias. Nota preliminar
  40. Aguirre . Emiliano . Carbonell . Eudald . Early human expansions into Eurasia: The Atapuerca evidence . Quaternary International . January 2001 . 75 . 1 . 11–18 . 10.1016/S1040-6182(00)00073-2 . 2001QuInt..75...11A .

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