Eudald Carbonell

An internationally acclaimed archaeologist, known for his popular science media contributions in the field of history, he obtained a PhD in geology of the Quaternary period from the Pierre et Marie Curie University – Paris VI, and another in Geography and History from the University of Barcelona (UB) and, since 1991, has been Professor of Prehistory at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) in Tarragona. He has led numerous excavations in European and African sites but, above all, it has been his work as head of the excavation at the prehistoric Atapuerca site, one of the most important in the world, that has led to his international renown. He is the author of numerous popular science works, including Atapuerca: un millón de años de historia  (Complutense, 1998), which is co-authored with José María Bermúdez de Castro and Juan Luis Arsuaga, Encara no som humans (Empúries 2001), co-authored with Robert Sala, and L’arqueòleg del futur (Ara Llibres, 2013). Notable among his scientific publications is the article, co-authored with other members of the Atapuerca team, that appeared in Science with the title A Hominid from the Lower Pleistocene of Atapuerca, Spain: Possible Ancestor to Neanderthals and Modern Humans (1997) and changed the notions that scientists had previously had of Europe’s prehistory. He has received numerous prizes for his work, including (as representative of the Atapuerca team) the 1997 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, and the National Prize for Culture (2009). At present, he is also a researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES).