Yoel Rak

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yoel Rak

Yoel Rak (born June 29, 1946 in Berlin ) is an Israeli anatomist and paleoanthropologist . Since 1991 he has been a full professor in the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University . Rak became internationally known for his studies of the skull and face of the Australopithecines as well as the physique and distribution of the Neanderthals in the Levant and in Europe .

Career

Yoel Rak was born as the son of Holocaust survivors Pinhas and Hana Rak in a DP camp of the Jewish Agency for Jewish Displaced Persons in Berlin. At the age of two after the establishment of the state, his parents immigrated to Israel with him and settled in Ramat Gan . In Ramat Gan, he attended Hillel -Grundschule, then he moved to the high school to Hadassim Children and Youth Village , a boarding school for children of European immigrants.

Rak, who had been interested in fossils since he was a child , wanted to study paleoanthropology; however, this subject was not yet offered in Israel in the mid-1960s. Therefore, from 1968 onwards he put together his curriculum at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the University of Tel Aviv from courses in prehistory , archeology , anatomy , paleontology , zoology , geology and genetics . From the second year of his studies until 1972 he was employed as a research assistant in the Department of Anatomy of the medical faculty in Tel Aviv .

In 1972 Yoel Rak obtained a bachelor's degree in prehistory and archeology from the Hebrew University . He then studied anatomy and anthropology in Tel Aviv, but had to interrupt his studies because he was drafted into the Israeli armed forces during the 1973 Yom Kippur War . After the war, he earned his master's degree (1975), moved to the USA at the University of California, Berkeley, and there - under the guidance of Sherwood L. Washburn , Tim White and Francis Clark Howell - completed his dissertation on “The Morphology and Architecture of the Australopithecine Face "(" Morphology and structure of the face of the Australopithecine "). An edited version of the dissertation was published two years later under the title "The Australopithecine Face" as a book by the New York publishing house Academic Press .

1980 Yoel Rak returned to Israel and was appointed lecturer at Tel Aviv University; In 1991 he was appointed full professor. From 2004 to 2008 he headed the Institute for Anatomy and Anthropology and was repeatedly named “best teacher”. During this time he spent research semesters in Berkeley at the Institute for Human Origins , at the also renowned Duke University in North Carolina and - most recently in 2008/2009 - at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver , Canada .

In addition to his specialist publications, Rak published numerous popular science articles in the journals Mahshavot and Teva Hadvarim .

Yoel Rak is married and has three children.

Research topics

The flat face and the bones used to anchor the masticatory muscles are clearly visible on Mrs. Ples' skull .

Yoel Rak has been studying the changes in hominini anatomy in the course of evolution since he was a student . The focus of the research is on the one hand the anatomy of the face and - directly related to this - the biomechanics of the chewing apparatus, that is: the interaction of bones and muscles in the head area; on the other hand, the biomechanics of upright gait .

In his dissertation, Rak already looked into the question of the biomechanical reasons that had brought about the characteristic topography of the face in the australopithecins: Their face is flat in the center like a plate, but in the edge area - above, left and right of the eyes, and also in the area of ​​the Jaws - bones bulge significantly forward. The face is at Australopithecus therefore inwardly curved (concave), while for example in the apes is outwardly curved (convex). Rak interpreted the shape of the face of the australopithecines as the result of a shift in the attachments for the masticatory muscles from the sides to the periphery of the face, which means that the jaws can chew more vigorously thanks to increased leverage .

Also as part of his dissertation Rak began in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio the few previously known facial bones of Australopithecus afarensis - study finds; Lucy , discovered by Donald Johanson in the Hadar area of Ethiopia in 1974 , was a fairly complete skeleton; however, with the exception of the lower jaw , almost all of the bones of his head had been lost. Due to the civil war in Ethiopia, Johanson found it too dangerous to continue his field studies in this country from 1977, which is why they were only reorganized by him from the early 1990s. During one of these excursions in Hadar, Yoel Rak discovered the well-preserved skull AL 444-2 of an adult male Australopithecus afarensis with a tooth position very similar to the genus Homo . This approximately 3 million year old skull find contributed significantly to the fact that the previously controversial separation of the Ethiopian fossils from the long-known South African fossils of the species Australopithecus africanus prevailed in the professional world. A summary of the findings on the skull of Australopithecus afarensis was published in 2004 by Oxford University Press . A study published in 2007 on an afarensis lower jaw questioned the proximity of this species to the ancestors of humans, since the ascending branch of the lower jaw ( Ramus mandibulae ) is more similar to Paranthropus robustus than to the early homo species.

The second research focus of Yoel Rak is the Neanderthal finds in the area of ​​Israel. The Neanderthals who immigrated from the north and the modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) who came from the south lived in this region for long periods of time . Both alternately inhabit the same caves. Yoel Rak initiated various excavations and was involved in the exploration of the Amud Cave (1990–1994) and the Kebara Cave (1982–1990), in which the southernmost occurrence of Neanderthals could be proven. In the Neanderthals, too, Rak's anatomical studies focused primarily on the structure of their face and especially on the reconstruction of their chewing movements.

Honors

Yoel Rak, 2008

Yoel Rak is a reviewer for the American Journal of Physical Anthropology , Nature , Current Anthropology, and the Journal of Human Evolution . In 1999 he was awarded the Igor Orenstein Chair for the Study of Aging at Tel Aviv University. In 2008 he was elected a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences .

Literature (selection)

Books
  • The Australopithecine Face. Academic Press, New York 1983, ISBN 978-0125762809 .
  • with William H. Kimbel and Donald C. Johanson: The Skull of Australopithecus afarensis. Oxford University Press, London 2004, ISBN 978-0195157062 .
Technical articles
  • Howell FC: Cranium of a juvenile Australopithecus boisei from the lower Omo basin, Ethiopia. In: Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 48, 1978, pp. 345-366.
  • The functional significant of the squamous suture in Australopithecus boisei. In: Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 49, 1978, pp. 71-78.
  • with R. Clarke: Ear ossicle of Australopithecus robustus. In: Nature 279, 1979, pp. 62-63.
  • with R. Clarke: Aspects of the middle and external ear of early South African hominids. In: Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 51, 1979, pp. 471-474.
  • The Morphology and Architecture of the Australopithecine Face. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley 1981.
  • Australopithecine taxonomy and phylogeny in light of facial morphology. In: Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 66, 1985, pp. 281-287.
  • Sexual dimorphism, ontogeny and the beginning of differentiation of the robust Australopithecine clade. In: PV Tobias (Ed.): Past, Present and Future of Hominid Evolution. Alan R. Liss, New York 1985, pp. 233-237.
  • The Neanderthal: A new look at an old face. In: J. Hum. Evol. 15, 1986, pp. 151-164.
  • with B. Arensburg: Kebara 2 Neanderthal pelvis: First look at a complete inlet. In: Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 73, 1987, pp. 227-231.
  • On the differences between two pelvises of Mousterian context from the Qafzeh and Kebara Caves, Israel. In: Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 81, 1990, pp. 323-332.
  • Lucy's pelvic anatomy: its role in bipedal gait. In: J. Hum. Evol. 20, 1991, pp. 283-290.
  • with WH Kimbel and DC Johanson: The First Skull and Other New Discoveries of Australopithecus afarensis at Hadar, Ethiopia. In: Nature 368, 1994, pp. 449-451.
  • with WH Kimbel and E. Hovers: A Neandertal Infant from Amud Cave, Israel. In: J. Hum. Evol. 26, 1994, pp. 313-324.
  • "444". The earliest human skull. In: Machshavot 67, 1995, pp. 50-65. (in Hebrew)
  • with WH Kimbel and DC Johanson: The Crescent of Foramina of Australopithecus afarensis. In: Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 101, 1996, pp. 93-99.
  • with A. Ginzburg and E. Geffen: Does Homo neanderthalensis Play a Role in Modern Human Ancestry? The Mandibular Evidence. In: Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 119, 2002, pp. 199-204.
  • with A. Ginzburg and E. Geffen: Gorilla Anatomy on Australopithecus afarensis mandibles suggests Au. afarensis link to robust australopiths. In: PNAS 104 (16), 2007, pp. 6568-6572.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Y. Rak: The Morphology and Architecture of the Australopithecine Face. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1981
  2. ↑ Illustration of the skull AL 444 ( Memento of the original from August 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.modernhumanorigins.net
  3. ^ William H. Kimbel, Donald C. Johanson and Yoel Rak: The First Skull and Other New Discoveries of Australopithecus afarensis at Hadar, Ethiopia. In: Nature , Volume 368, 1994, pp. 449-451, doi : 10.1038 / 368449a0
  4. ↑ Yoel Rak, Avishag Ginzburg and Eli Geffen: Gorilla-like anatomy on Australopithecus afarensis mandibles suggests Au. afarensis link to robust australopiths. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , Volume 104, No. 16, 2007, pp. 6568-6572, doi : 10.1073 / pnas.0606454104
    diepresse.com of April 10, 2007: “Anthropology: Lucy is no longer our mother ! "
  5. ^ Y. Rak and B. Arensburg: Kebara 2 Neanderthal pelvis: First look at a complete inlet. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology , Volume 73, No. 2, 1987, pp. 227-231, doi : 10.1002 / ajpa.1330730209
personal data
SURNAME Rak, yoel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rak, Yoel Zvi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli anatomist and paleoanthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin