Friedemann Schrenk

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Friedemann Schrenk during the 15th Koenigswald Lecture at the Senckenberg Naturmuseum in November 2016

Friedemann Schrenk (born July 18, 1956 in Stuttgart ) is a German paleoanthropologist . On August 11, 1991 one of his helpers found the toothed lower jaw UR 501 of a 2.4 million year old hominid in Uraha, a small village near Karonga in Malawi . The fossil was classified as Homo rudolfensis in the journal Nature in 1993 and was considered the oldest member of the genus Homo until the description of the lower jaw fragment LD 350-1 in March 2015 - half a million years older than the fragment that Richard Leakey wrote on in 1972 Turkana Lake .

Career

Friedemann Schrenk first studied graphic design for one semester , then geology , palaeontology , zoology , anatomy and anthropology at the Technical University of Darmstadt , after completing the intermediate diploma, from 1981 onwards for 18 months at the University of Johannesburg and then again in Darmstadt, where he took the diploma examination in 1985 Geology. In 1987 he completed his studies at the chair of the Frankfurt zoologist Wolfgang Maier with a dissertation on a subject of skull anatomy and was Maier's assistant at the Center of Morphology at the University Clinic in Frankfurt . From 1987 Schrenk moved again as Maier's assistant to the Institute for Special Zoology at the University of Tübingen . In 1994 he completed his habilitation at the Technical University of Darmstadt in the subject of paleontology.

In 1989, however, Schrenk moved to the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt , initially as a curator in the geological, palaeontological and mineralogical department and from 1990 as department head. From 1992 to 1999 he was deputy director of the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt.

Friedemann Schrenk has headed the paleoanthropology and quaternary paleontology section at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main, to which the Senckenberg Museum is affiliated, and is professor of paleobiology of vertebrates at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt .

Focus of work

The lower jaw UR 501 (original)

The research focus of Friedemann Schrenk is mainly paleoanthropology, also his department at Senckenberg busy with biogeography and evolutionary ecology of the Pliocene and Pleistocene Africa (with field work in Malawi , Tanzania and Kenya of mammals and), evolutionary and functional morphology comparative structure morphology of Hard tissues. For years, the focus of his research has been on the question: "How did we - Homo sapiens - come about?" The aim of his research is to develop a holistic picture of human evolution as a function of climate, environmental and food changes in Africa.

Friedemann Schrenk has had the only excavation license in Malawi since 1983, together with his colleague Timothy Bromage . In the north-south corridor, today mainly in Malawi and Tanzania , his projects have been established and successful since 1983 as part of the hominid corridor project . His most important finds are a partially dentate lower jaw of Homo rudolfensis (catalog number UR 501 , named after a jeans model ) and an upper jaw fragment found in 1996 near Malema with preserved first two molars of the australopithecine Paranthropus boisei (RC 911). In cooperation with various partners - especially with his US colleague Timothy Bromage - Schrenk is also trying to explore new potential fossil sites. To this end, he usually works for several months a year at times in Uganda , Qatar , Yemen , Saudi Arabia and Iran .

In the north of Malawi, in Karonga , a culture and museum center has been founded on his initiative and with the support of the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the Uraha Foundation . a. to house his pre-human finds. It is also intended to convey to the local population that people have developed in Africa - most Africans are not yet aware of this. The center is intended to contribute to promoting the cultural identity in Malawi.

With the school project " Hominids make school" started in 2003, Schrenk has also succeeded in providing European and African schoolchildren with casts of hominid finds and work materials with the help of donations: For every material suitcase sold in Germany, an African school receives another given. For example, the pupils get information about the location, age and size of hominids, which they can discuss in a series of lessons. In addition to using the learning and illustrative material, contact between schools from Europe and Africa is also to be intensified.

Together with Timothy Bromage, Schrenk is trying to found a new academic subject with Human Paleobiomics , in which, in addition to traditional paleoanthropology, all subject areas that describe the habitat of early humans (the 'paleobiome') are to be integrated.

Friedemann Schrenk is a member of the Senate Commission for Geoscientific Community Research of the German Research Foundation ( DFG ), a member of the Geology-Paleontology Review Board of the DFG, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Uraha Foundation Germany and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Uraha Foundation Malawi.

Awards

  • In 1997 Friedemann Schrenk received the Research Prize of the Collège de France , and in 1999 he received the Grüter Prize for science journalism from the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft .
  • In 2005 he gave the Rudolf Virchow lecture in the research area Paleolithic of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum .
  • In 2006 he was awarded the Communicator Prize endowed with 50,000 euros . The jury recognized “Friedemann Schrenk's long-term, continuous and wide-ranging communication performance. He is not only passionate about his subject, he also succeeds in captivating people and at the same time making an important social and cultural contribution to Malawi. ”The jury's appreciation also stated:“ In addition to his work in Africa, Schrenk has a talent for communication demonstrated in numerous articles, books and other media. In his popular science books "The Early Days of Man", "Adam's Parents" and "The Neanderthals" Schrenk explains the development history of our ancestors in an exciting and informative way. But not only in the print media, but also in lectures, museum tours and panel discussions, Schrenk inspires his audience with topics about the Incarnation in Africa or the history of evolution. "
  • In 2011 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon.
  • In the summer semester of 2012, Schrenk held the 13th Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz .

Fonts (selection)

Technical article
  • Friedemann Schrenk et al .: Early Hominid diversity, age and biogeography of the Malawi-Rift. In: Human Evolution. Volume 17, No. 1-2, 2002, pp. 113-122, doi: 10.1007 / BF02436432 .
  • Timothy G. Bromage, Friedemann Schrenk and Frans W. Zonneveld: Paleoanthropology of the Malawi Rift: An early hominid mandible from the Chiwondo Beds, northern Malawi. In: Journal of Human Evolution . Volume 28, No. 1, 1995, pp. 71-108, doi: 10.1006 / jhev.1995.1007 .
  • Friedemann Schrenk et al .: Oldest Homo and Pliocene biogeography of the Malawi Rift. In: Nature . Volume 365, 1993, pp. 833-836, doi: 10.1038 / 365833a0 .
Books
  • The early days of man. The way to Homo sapiens. (= CH Beck Knowledge , No. 2059). 6th, fundamentally revised and supplemented edition. Beck, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-406-73600-1 .
  • with Stephanie Müller: The 101 most important questions - primeval times. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-406-54741-6 .
  • with Stephanie Müller: The Neanderthals. (= CH Beck Wissen , No. 2373). Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-50873-1 .
  • with Timothy G. Bromage: Adam's Parents. Expeditions into the world of early humans. Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-48615-0 .
  • with Timothy G. Bromage (Ed.): African Biogeography, Climate Change and Early Hominid Evolution. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 978-0-19-511437-9 .
Audio books

literature

  • Bernhard Epping: All family trees are smoke and mirrors. A portrait by Friedemann Schrenk. In: Spectrum of Science . September 2010, pp. 68-73.
  • Lia Venn: Five kilometers per generation. In: Frankfurter Rundschau No. 250 of October 28, 2009, p. F32, full text

Web links

Commons : Friedemann Schrenk  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Curriculum vitae on the server of the German Research Foundation, as of 2006
  2. ↑ Africa's ambassador. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of January 31, 2012, page 42
  3. ↑ Hans Peter Klein and Paul Dierkes: Human history in a suitcase. An example of didactic research in the life sciences. In: Research Frankfurt. No. 3, 2007, pp. 74-77, full text (PDF)
  4. ↑ Evolutionist Bromage: "Our science is immature". In: fr-online.de . July 10, 2010, accessed December 20, 2014 .
  5. ^ Communicator Prize 2006 for Friedemann Schrenk. Press release of the German Research Foundation of April 5, 2006
    Speeches and laudations on the occasion of the Communicator Prize. German Research Foundation, as of December 9, 2009
  6. ↑ "Prof. Dr. Friedemann Schrenk is the holder of the Johannes Gutenberg Endowed Professorship in 2012 ”, press release from the University of November 29, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Schrenk, Friedemann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German paleoanthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart