Briefing you about our Field School for Quaternary Palaeoanthropology and Prehistory of Murcia

In April 2007 I gave a talk about our research at Sima de las Palomas and Cueva Negra at the invitation of Professor Svante Paäbo, the internationally renowned geneticist who conducts research into both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA from Neanderthal bones, who is the Director of the ultra-modern, seven-storey-high, Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology at Leipzig in Germany, and whom I had first got to know at a meeting in Madrid back in 1993. The talk was well received and Svante Paäbo made useful suggestions about how we might best excavate the Sima de las Palomas Neanderthal skeletal remains, wearing face-masks and surgical gloves, and putting the fossils into sterile containers. This we did in Summer 2007 and in the Autumn Svante’s Ph.D. student, Oxford University Biology graduate Adrian Briggs, came to Murcia and we helped him as he extracted samples from our newly-excavated Neanderthal bones in a sterile operating theatre in Murcia University’s Veterinary Science Faculty. Later on, he reported back from Leipzig that our excavation technique had been so good that almost no modern human DNA contamination could be detected, though so far, alas, neither has any Neanderthal DNA been identified – possibly because too few samples were taken by him and they may have been too small anyway (less than 200 miligrams each) given the high ambient temperature at Sima de las Palomas which may predispose to break up of the nucleotide fragments of DNA.
In September 2006 I gave a presentation entitled “The Demise of the Mysterians” based on our Cueva Negra research, in Colloquium 13 (“The Earliest Inhabitants of Europe”) at the XV Congress of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences at Lisbon. In November 2005 I gave a lecture about our work at Cueva Negra and Sima de las Palomas at Oxford University’s Institute of Archaeology in its Quaternary Seminar Series. In February 2006 I gave lectures on that work at Barcelona University and at Castellón.
My European travels in 2004 (see above) in order to gain support for the projected regional Museum for Paleontology and Human Evolution took up much of my spare time and energy that year, to the exclusion of other activities such as delivering public lectures, other than to local meetings of archaeologists and anthropologists at Murcia. I gave an invited lecture about our research at Oxford University’s Institute of Archaeology in November 2005. I gave a public lecture at the San Sebastián Science Museum in October 2003 and in February 2002 I gave one at Murcia’s Science and Water Resources Museum. In 2001 I gave several public lectures at places which included Oxford University, the XIV International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences which was held at Liège in Belgium, at the Austrian national Natural History Museum in Vienna. In November 2000, I gave a major lecture about human evolution during the Middle and earlier Upper Pleistocene, at an international scientific meeting in Valencia organized by the Spanish governmental institution known as the Menéndez Pelayo International University. Other participants included Professor Bernard Wood of the Washington University and Professor Günter Bräuer of Hamburg University, as well as Mexican and Spanish scientists, including Emeritus Professor Emiliano Aguirre.
In 2000 national governmental recognition of our field research, by granting us R&D Project PB98-045, assisted us to acquire new international contacts and collaboration, as well as maintaining pre-existing ones, and most particularly favoured our obtaining the royal patronage of His Majesty King Juan Carlos I of Spain who graciously accepted Honorary Chairmanship for the (December 6-19, 2000) International Colloquium and Workshop “The Iberian Peninsula and Human Evolution”, A Symposium in Honour of Professor Phillip V. Tobias, F.R.S.” which I organized at Murcia. Professor Tobias, who was 75 in 2000, flew to Murcia from South Africa to take part, where hs is Emeritus Professor of the Witwatersrand University at Johannesburg and still directs its Palaeoanthropology Research Group. He is a frequent visitor to Spain. He gave a splendid adress on “The role of water in the extra-African dispersal of humanity, with special reference to the peopling of the Iberian Peninsula.” The programme included official visits to our sites of the Sima de las Palomas of Cabezo Gordo and Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar, on which I also gave an address entitled “Neanderthal Man in Murcia: Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar and Sima de las Palomas del Cabezo Gordo.”
Other participants gave addresses as follows. Professor Geoffrey A. Clark of the University of Arizona State University gave an address on “Modern human origins research: putting Iberia in a global context.” Professor Derek A. Roe of Oxford University gave an address on “The Iberian Peninsula in the Palaeolithic: an outsider’s view.” The orthodontal surgeon and dental anthropologist Dr. Vincent A. Lombardi, from Pittsburgh, gave an address on “Dental anthropology and Neanderthal Man.” Drs. Joao Zilhao and Cidalia Duarte of the Portuguese government’s Archaeological Institute gave an addres on “The Lagar Velho child: burial anatomy and implications for modern human origins in Iberia.” Professor Camilo José Cela Conde of the University of the Balearic Islands, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, gave an address on “Just how stupid was Homo habilis? Problems over a suitable taxonomy of Pliocene hominins.” Dr. José Gibert Clols of the “Dr. M. Crusafont” Palaeontological Institute of Barcelona gave an address on “Cueva Victoria at Llano del Beal, Cartagena, Murcia”. Professor Enrique García Olivares of Granada University gave an address on “Molecular palaeontology: The study of biomolecules in fossils.” Professor Daniel Turbón of Barcelona University gave an address on “Ancient DNA in the Iberian Peninsula”. Professor José Enrique Egocheaga of Oviedo University gave an address on “Preliminary results of palaeoanthropological research into the Cueva de El Sidrón Neanderthals.” Professor Ignacio Martínez of Madrid’s Complutensian University gave an address on “The evolution of mind” on behalf of himself and Professor Juan Luis Arsuaga (who at the last minute was unable to attend because of another pressing commitment).
In 1997 I gave invited lectures to the Spanish National Archaeological Congress, at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, and at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, while in 1996 I gave a lectures at Oxford University’s “Baden-Powell” Quaternary Research Centre, at the International Symposium in Honour of Professor Phillip Tobias FRS held at the University of the Balearic Islands at Palma de Mallorca, and at the Cartagena Cultural Centre at Cartagena, as well as during a week-long Murcia University Summer School to 40 international students on Human Evolution and Palaeoanthropology in September at which other leading Spanish scientists took part (Professors Emiliano Aguirre, Daniel Turbón, José Gibert and José Camilo Cela Conde) as well as other junior researchers (Drs. Francesc Ribot and Miguel Martínez Andreu, Ms. Florentina Sánchez, and Mr.José Isaac Serrano). In 1995 I gave two public lectures at the invitation of the municipal authorities of Torre Pacheco and another lecture and an exhibition at the invitation of those of Caravaca. I also gave invited scientific lectures at the Murcian Regional Archaeological Week (two lectures and an exhibition), at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (a lecture), at Barcelona University (a lecture), and at the International Conference on Human Palaeontology at Orce (two lectures and an exhibition, and I also guided an excursion to Sima de las Palomas). I also organized an exhiibition at Murcia University's "Biology Week" and a guided excursion to Sima de las Palomas for Murcia University's Summer School on "Archaeology of Death". In 1994 I gave several lectures on the two sites in England during my period as Oxford University Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology (3 in Oxford, one at the Natural History Museum in London, another at London University and yet another at Liverpool University. In most years since 1991, I have addressed the Murcia regional government’s week-long symposium held at Murcia at which archaeological field research during the previous twelve months is presented in public.
FIELD TRAINING
Topics covered by me in informal lectures, on-site briefings, and guided excursions to helpers and staff assistants include:
*** excavation methodology and practice

*** treatment and classification of finds

*** fundamentals of hominin and human evolution

*** Quaternary landscapes

*** Palaeolithic archaeology and stone tools

*** Sima de las Palomas and Cueva Negra in their context

*** flora and fauna of the ice age

*** field excursions to other Quaternary or archaeological sites, museums, and places of historical interest.