Pierre-Marcellin Boule (1 January 1861 – 4 July 1942), better known as merely Marcellin Boule, was a French

palaeontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...

, and

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

Early life and education

Pierre-Marcellin Boule was born in Montsalvy, France.

Career

Boule was a professor at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris (1902–1936) and "for many years director of the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, Paris." He was an editor (1893–1940) of the journal ''L’Anthropologie'' and was the founder of two other scientific journals. Boule studied and published in 1911 the first analysis of a complete

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

specimen. The fossil discovered in La Chapelle-aux-Saints was an old man, and Boule characterized it as brutish, bent-kneed and not a fully erect biped. In an illustration Boule commissioned, the Neanderthal was characterized as a hairy

gorilla Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, terrestrial great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five su ...

-like figure with

opposable The thumb is the first digit of the hand, next to the index finger. When a person is standing in the medical anatomical position (where the palm is facing to the front), the thumb is the outermost digit. The Medical Latin English noun for thumb ...

toes, according to a skeleton which was already distorted with

arthritis Arthritis is a general medical term used to describe a disorder that affects joints. Symptoms generally include joint pain and stiffness. Other symptoms may include redness, warmth, Joint effusion, swelling, and decreased range of motion of ...

. As a result, Neanderthals were viewed in subsequent decades as being highly primitive creatures with no direct relation to anatomically modern humans. Later re-evaluations of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton have roundly discredited Boule's initial work on the specimen. He was one of the first to argue that eoliths were not human made. Boule also expressed some skepticism about the Piltdown Man discovery — later revealed to be a hoax. As early as 1915, Boule recognized that the jaw belonged to an ape rather than an ancient human. However, the Piltdown forgery has been characterized as providing evidential support for Boule's "branching evolution" conclusions drawn from his Neanderthal research — research which is likewise said to have "prepar dthe international community for the appearance of a non-Neanderthal fossil such as Piltdown Man."

Personal life and demise

Boule died at age 81 in Montsalvy in France, the same town where he was born.

References and sources

External links

* 1861 births 1942 deaths People from Cantal French paleontologists Wollaston Medal winners {{france-scientist-stub