Juan Luis Arsuaga

Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras (born 1954 in Madrid) obtained a bachelor degree and a doctorate in Biological Sciences at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he is professor in the Paleontology Department of the [http://www.ucm.es/centros/webs/fgeo/ Faculty of Geological Sciences] .

As a child he already showed a great interest in prehistory after reading "Quest for Fire" and visiting a dig in nearby Bilbao.

Arsuaga is a visiting professor of the Department of Anthropology at the University College of London and a member of the Equipment of Investigations of Pleistocene Deposits of the Mountain range of Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) since 1982. He has been a co-director since 1991 with José María Bermúdez de Castro and Eudald Carbonell Roura of the Equipment, which was awarded with the Prince of Asturias Prize for the "Scientific and Technical Research" and the Prize Castilla León to the "Social Sciences and Humanities", both in 1997. The finds at Atapuerca have shed new light on the first humans in Europe. This contrasts with the secretive atmosphere surrounding the digs to near Orce, in southern Spain, which has yielded tools indicating human presence that predate the finds at Atapuerca.

A member of the Museum of Man from Paris, of the International Association for the Study of Human Paleontology, he is vice-president of the "Commission of Human Paleontology and Paleoecology" of the International Union Quaternary Research (INQUA). He has been a lecturer at the universities of London, Cambridge, Zurich, Rome, Arizona, Philadelphia, Berkeley, New York, Tel Aviv, among others.

He authored and/or published several scientific publications in "Nature", "Science", "Journal of Archaeological Science", "American Journal of Physical Anthropology", and "Journal of Human Evolution".

Bibliography

*"Amalur", 2002 (ISBN 84-8460-191-9)
*"Atapuerca, un millón de años de historia", 1999 (ISBN 84-7491-629-1)
*"El enigma de la esfinge", 2001 (ISBN 84-01-34160-4)
*"El collar del neandertal", 1999 (ISBN 8478807934)
*"La especie elegida", 1998 with Ignacio Martínez (ISBN 84-7880-909-0)

External links

* [http://www.atapuerca.tv/ Atapuerca Website] es
* [http://www.ucm.es/info/paleo/personal/arsuaga.htm Biography at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid] es