YVES COPPENS, THE INTERVIEW 2/3
If there are two names that most people immediately associate with paleontology, Yves Coppens and Lucy are one of those (specimen of Australopithecus afarensis), respectively born in 1934 and discovered in 1974 in Hadar, Ethiopia. The first is indeed known to be one of the discoverers of the second.
Paleoanthropologist passionate about the dissemination of scientific knowledge, Professor Yves Coppens is a specialist in the different species of the human line and the different branches that constitute it. A former CNRS researcher and director of the Musée de l’Homme, his career has also been marked by numerous prizes and titles, including the Jaffé Grand Prize from the Academy of Sciences, the CNRS silver medal, the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur or that of Officier de l’Ordre National du Mérite. In addition, he was called to join the Collège de France, in 1983, within the Paleoanthropology and Prehistory Chair.
Professor Yves Coppens very kindly gave me an exclusive interview on his beginnings, his discoveries, his immediate projects, but also the evolution of paleontology and the future of this fascinating science of which he is definitely an essential figure.
– To what extent has Lucy been a major discovery, for you and for paleoanthropology?
Contrary to popular belief, this was not a major discovery. It was a major discovery – I’m not saying bad things about us because we’re so happy with it – but it has become oddly, for easy-to-understand reasons, a kind of symbol of Evolution. It became a kind of symbol because when it was found, it was the oldest (3.2 Ma); because at the time it was found it was less incomplete than the others. So we reshaped it. And that’s the genius, in spite of us, the fact of remaking the silhouette, all audiences saw who it was, a little character. And this little character has become likeable and, once again, the emblem of the origin of Man.
So when we found it, it was 3.2 Ma. But, in fact, I knew very well – forgive me, but it is really me – I believed very much in a tooth, an unfortunate tooth, which had been found in Kenya and which had the double, 6 Ma. I believed in it a lot and I did well since, years later, this tooth became the starting point of another human fossil of 6 Ma which was called Orrorin tugenensis which I also participated in describing and signing. That means Lucy was apparently the oldest, but she wasn’t actually the oldest.
[Lucy] became a kind of symbol
And then also, in my laboratory, we noticed for the first time that with her legs, she was walking, and that with her arms, she was climbing. So she had this kind of double locomotion, bi-locomotion, which was not known at all at the time. So much to the point that colleagues from different nations – and especially American – upset us a lot at the time, because we said that and they said « Lucy walked like everyone else ». And since then, we have understood that we were right and that, for example, Ardipithecus walks and climbs, for example, Orrorin walks and climbs, for example, Lucy walks and climbs as we said. And, for example, Lucy’s child found in a site near Hadar, also walks and climbs, unquestionably. And that side, climbing as before and walking as after, it’s still quite extravagant, quite extraordinary. I remember a lecture I gave at the Academy of Medicine, of which I am a member, and where I said that it was an amazing skeleton that showed that this individual was climbing and walking. And everyone had a lot of fun saying « it’s a piece of climbing monkey and a piece of human walking, and then you did a mistake in the association ». Fortunately, the femur was the link, the top of the femur was walking, and the bottom of the femur was climbing. So the femur saved us a little. But I mean it was like that at first.
Now we found much more complete than Lucy, the same age, we found much older than Lucy, more than double. But Lucy remains, again, a kind of standard-bearer in the history of the origin of man. And, for the penetration of opinion … of public mentalities vis-à-vis this very great seniority of Man, it is great. So we were completely dubbed by Lucy.
I have a little story to tell you about this subject that I like to tell. I have a friend who, in the 80s and 90s, made a film on Evolution on French Television (France 3). And, as my name is Yves, he had been nice, he had called this film Yves, like me, Lucy, like her, and the others, « Yves, Lucy and the others ».
And my secretariat, at that time received calls from reviews, magazines, television, asking for photographs of the two skeletons. (Laughs). Sometimes, we think we have achieved a great notoriety and then … Let’s get used to it, the notoriety of humans is fleeting, that of Lucy’s is eternal and let’s enjoy this.
– Tell us a little bit about your East Side Story theory, what is it and where are we with it now?
It is rightly abandoned, in the sense that it is no longer East. But it is preserved as far as the story itself is concerned. The story itself, for me is the common ancestors who lived in the forest, ten million years ago and who had descendants who, for a reason of climate change, were found by chance in forest environments and others in a savannah environment. And those from a forest environment became ancestors of chimpanzees, then chimpanzees themselves. And those in open (or savannah) environments, in this case let’s say open forest, stood up to adapt to this much more open environment.
I like the nominations
So that story remains and it is very firmly entrenched in the beliefs of scientists today. But my mistake had been, when I was working in East Africa, to put this only in East Africa and I was wrong. It means that this « story » is « good », but in fact it is a story that is more concentric. Prehumans were found in Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa. So they are in an open landscape which circumscribes the equatorial forest, all around the equatorial forest. That is, the cradle, instead of being East African, instead of being East and South African, it is actually tropical and African, always, but it is concentric all around the tropics of Africa. I called it the « ring cradle »; « ring », like the roads around Brussels, and it is « ring cradle ». But it can be explained like that and also named like that. I like the nominations. That’s why I did the East Side Story, I thought it was pretty. It worked, that’s good, it doesn’t anymore, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care, if you only knew. (Laughs)
– What are your most memorable memories from the field?
It is surely the discovery of the first human fossil that I made, in Chad. It was in 1961. I had only been in tropical Africa since 1960. So, from the second year, I found this human fossil which was very fossilized, was a mixture of sandstone, fossilized sand, hard sand and fossilized bone and which I called Tchadanthropus (which is probably a Homo erectus). But, well, it was my first baby. Lucy was a great discovery, but first she was shared, we were three bosses in this mission, it was not me who found the first piece. And in fact this Chadanthrope is really unique to me, he is really mine and it was my first master stroke. That’s why I’m very marked by the desert and very little by the forest, because also my first contact with the great tropical lands, was the desert, the Sahara and the Sahel. So I’ve always been very much in love with the desert. I got used to the desert right away and the very dry heat doesn’t bother me. The very humid heat bothers me. Whereas if I had started with the forest, maybe it would have been the other way around. So my favorite fossil is the Tchadanthropus.
– What led you to join the Collège de France? What does the job consist of?
So, for the Collège de France, they came to get me. It’s pretentious to say that, but it’s true. I was at the Musée de l’Homme and I had the function of director – because the director did not exist at that time – I was a professor, I had a chair at the Museum of Natural History, in this case at the Musée de l’Homme (the chair of anthropology), I was very happy, but I have always been very happy where I was. And they came to hand me this pole at the College de France. And then… I knew what college was, anyway, but I found it interesting, intelligent… I like to move a lot, I’m not actually stable. It’s terrible to say that, I’m not sedentary. My life expresses it well since I have run around the world and I continue. And so, I was tempted.
I’m not sedentary
I came to visit the professors as it should be and many said to me « Ah, there you are finally! Since how long you’ve been waiting for « something like that, which was nice. The people who wanted me to come had been announcing my coming for a very long time already and my election was very prepared, in a way. So I had no trouble telling you what happened. There is a vote on the chair first, I had proposed « Paleoanthropology and Prehistory » – it is the one who is invited who proposes the chair and there is first a vote on the chair, anonymous, and then a vote on the person then. And on the chair, I had the unanimity – I tell you this because I am really proud of it – and on my person, I had the unanimity less a blank voice, not a voice against, but a voiceless. And I was furious, I went to the administrator and I said to him, « Who didn’t vote for me? « . And in the very elegant and very courteous manner of the Collège de France, he said to me « But, my dear colleague, it does not matter, it is surely someone who forgot his pen ». (Laughs)
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