Manuel Fermín Rivero de la Calle

Manuel Fermín Rivero de la Calle (born April 5, 1926 in Esmeralda , Camagüey , Cuba , † September 23, 2001 in Havana , Cuba) was a Cuban anthropologist and paleontologist .

Live and act

After Rivero de la Calle discovered the work of the historian, poet and archaeologist Felipe Pichardo Moya (1892–1957) at the age of 17 , he joined the Cuban cave exploration society a few years later . In 1949 he graduated with a PhD in Natural Sciences from the University of Havana . In the following years he worked as a lecturer. In the early 1950s he taught at the School of Arts and Crafts in Trinidad , at a high school in Santa Clara and at the University of Las Villas , where he gave courses in anthropology between 1952 and 1958.

In 1959 he went to the Netherlands, where he deepened his anthropological skills with Professor Rudolf Bergman (1899–1967) from the Tropical Museum in Amsterdam until 1960 . From 1961 he began his work for the University of Havana, where he headed the Department of Anthropology, the Anthropological Museum and the Faculty of Biology from 1962 to 1976. From 1962 to 1963 he was deputy dean of this faculty. Between 1969 and 1976, thirty biologists under Rivero de la Calle achieved their PhD in physical anthropology.

Rivero de la Calle's main research areas have been physical anthropology, forensic anthropology, anthropometry , archeology , paleoanthropology , the history of anthropology, osteology , forensic practice , caving , primatology, and human biology . Numerous lecture tours have taken him to the United States, Mexico, Panama, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Martinique, Spain, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Czech Republic and Russia.

Another area of ​​Rivero de la Calles research was paleontology. In 1987 he brought to light the fossil remains of the Kuba monkey ( Paralouatta varonai ), which was described in 1991 by himself and the Cuban paleontologist Oscar Arredondo (1918-2001).

Rivero de la Calle authored seven books and over 140 scientific articles.

Taxa named after Rivero de la Calle

Oscar Arredondo named the fossil barn owl species Tyto riveroi in 1972 and the extinct giant sloth Paramiocnus riveroi in 2000 in honor of Rivero de la Calle.

Works (selection)

• Actas de la Sociedad Antropológica de la Isla de Cuba (1966)
• Las culturas aborígenes de Cuba (1966)
• Nociones de anatomía humana aplicadas a la arqueología (1983)
• Con el arqueólogo Ramón Dacal Moure colaboró ​​en las obras Arqueología aborigen de Cuba (1986)
• Art and archeology of Pre-Columbian Cuba (1996)

Web links

• Obituary at the Asociación Mexicana de Antropología Biológica, AC (Spanish)