The multiple Eudald Carbonell: The various roles of Catalonia’s most popular archaeologist Oliver Hochadel (*) (*) Institució Milà i Fontanals, CSIC, Barcelona [email protected] Dynamis Fecha de recepción: 20 de diciembre de 2012 [0211-9536] 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 Fecha de aceptación: 28 de febrero de 2013 SUMMARY: 1.—Introduction – the icon of Atapuerca. 2.—The young archaeologist. 3.—The exhibition on Catalonian prehistory in 1976. 4.—Fighter against the «establishment». 5.—Hunter of the «first European». 6.—An advocate for Spanish science. 7.—Fighter against «scientific colonialism». 8.—Communist and «agent of reflection». 9.—The media scientist. 10.—Catalanist and «interdependentist». 11.—Conclusion: from outsider to celebrity scientist. ABSTRACT: Eudald Carbonell is mainly known for being the co-director of the Atapuerca research project, a hominid site in Northern Spain that boasts the «oldest European». In the course of his career as an archaeologist, he has become a highly visible figure, not least because of his incessant attempts to communicate his ideas to the general public. In these past four decades, Carbonell has taken on a host of diverse roles: scientific but also social and political ones. The political and scientific context of Catalonia and Spain since the early 1970s proves crucial in these activities. Carbonell’s claim to belong to a «peripheral» scientific community (be it Catalan or Spanish) is a central element in the construction of these roles. At the same time, Carbonell provides an instructive example of the «medialization» of science, transforming himself from an outsider into a celebrity and ultimately into a commodity. PALABRAS CLAVE: arqueología, papel social, identidad nacional, ciencia y medios de comunicación. KEY WORDS: Archaeology, social role, national identity, science and the media. 1. Introduction – the icon of Atapuerca (*) «He is the tallest of them all and seems to be the one responsible for the work. His outfit is highly picturesque. He wears brown shorts, a khaki shirt and a sleeveless jacket of the same color full of pockets. Red socks peep out (*) Research for this article was supported by the following three projects: HAR2009-12918-C03-02; HAR2012-36204-C02-02 (both Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad) and 2009SGR887 (AGAUR-Generalitat de Catalunya). Oliver Hochadel 390 Dynamis 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 over his heavy boots, which are covered in dust. Yet what is most remarkable is his sun-hat, a true sun-helmet like the one Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr sported in King Solomon’s Mines (…) His face is tanned by the sun and a sympathetic and dense moustache covers the top of his mouth, giving him the air of an old photograph» 1. In this description Eudald Carbonell appears like a character out of a Hollywood movie. His distinctive features lend themselves to iconographic use. The man with the moustache and the sun-helmet smoking a pipe is a recurring item in the corporate image of the EIA (Equipo de Investigación de Atapuerca), at times only as a silhouette. He appears as the archetype of an archaeologist. Figure 1. Eudald Carbonell has become an icon – and appears as a silhouette (left) on the walls of the Museo de la Evolución Humana in Burgos, or on postcards (right). Photo: Oliver Hochadel, Postcard: SierrActiva. 1. Bermúdez de Castro, José María et al. Hijos de un tiempo perdido. La búsqueda de nuestros orígenes. Barcelona: Ares y Mares; 2004, p. 25; also see Bermúdez de Castro, José María. Exploradores. La historia del yacimiento de Atapuerca. Barcelona: Debate; 2012, p. 24. All translations are mine. The multiple Eudald Carbonell: The various roles of Catalonia’s most popular archaeologist 391 Dynamis 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 Carbonell wears his peculiar outfit not only while excavating. There are numerous photos showing him attending ceremonies in his short pants and heavy boots among dignitaries in suits and ties. And regardless whether the Spanish president is visiting the excavations at the Sierra de Atapuerca or whether the Spanish Queen Sofía is opening the new Museo de la Evolución Humana in Burgos. Carbonell seems to be eager to affirm his professional identity to convey a clear message: he is an archaeologist — and he is always the same no matter what the setting. However, this paper will try to show that Carbonell actually plays a variety of different roles. To claim that nowadays a scientist has to assume a number of very diverse roles may sound trivial. For some time he or she has not only been a researcher but also an academic teacher and on occasion a public figure. More recently, the roles of the administrator, the fund-raiser and the public relations-agent have become part of the persona of the scientist. What is more, Paul Rabinow for example, has shown how in the life sciences molecular biologists have also become entrepreneurs and businessmen 2. The case of the multiple Eudald Carbonell seems to be quite different though. The roles he assumes have less to do with the «diversification» of the persona of the scientist in the late twentieth century. Carbonell’s half a dozen roles need to be explained in the specific historical (political and scientific) context of Catalonia and Spain since the 1970s, in particular with respect to the situation in which archaeologists and prehistorians have found themselves in these decades. They have perceived themselves as belonging to the «periphery», trying to either attract the attention of scholars from the «center» or defending their excavation sites against «colonialists». In the case of Carbonell, it will become obvious that he constantly fashions himself as overcoming the limits of the «periphery» and successfully challenging the «center» 3. It seems crucial not to take these categories as historical realities but rather as rhetorical devices used to mobilize support (e.g. political or economic) and to give cohesion to newly emerging communities of scholars. 2. The classical account is Rabinow, Paul. Making PCR: A story of biotechnology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 1996. 3. To look at —and to question— center-periphery relationships has become a very useful tool in the history of science: Papanelopoulou, Faidra; Nieto-Galan, Agustí; Perdiguero, Enrique, eds. Popularizing science and technology in the European periphery, 1800-2000. Aldershot: Ashgate; 2009. Oliver Hochadel 392 Dynamis 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 This article is by and large organized chronologically but is not intended as a biography of Carbonell. Instead we will try to describe the emergence of the different roles and their relations with each other. The roles we will identify are not professional ones but rather «ideological» ones. These roles were not a given, at least not in the sense of the typical roles of a scientist mentioned above. Carbonell actively cut them out for himself. In this process he was able to transform himself from an «outsider» into a highly visible figure in the public sphere. We will see in how far he may be described as a «celebrity scientist» 4. On the one hand he constantly tries to instrumentalize the media for his scientific but also his socio-political goals. Yet on the other hand the media seem to impose their own logic on his persona. I will argue that the way he is framed in public even turns him into a commodity. The case of Carbonell will therefore also serve as an instructive example of what has been called the «medialization» of science 5. 2. The young archaeologist Eudald Carbonell was born in the village of Ribes de Freser in Northern Catalonia in 1953. In 1991, he became an assistant professor at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and since 1999 holds the chair for prehistory at this university in Southern Catalonia (mainly located in the city of Tarragona). He is also the director of the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES). However, for the first twenty years of his scientific career, the 1970s and the 1980s, it was by no means certain that Carbonell would achieve such a prominent academic position. In 1972, Josep Canal (b. 1920) was among the founding members of the Associació Arqueològica de Girona (AAG). Canal was not a professional archaeologist by training but an economist. Yet he was able to galvanize interest in Catalan archaeology, in particular for the prehistoric period. One may interpret the activities of the AAG as an attempt to create a protected 4. Fahy, Declan. The celebrity scientists: A collective case study. Dublin: Dublin City University; 2010. 5. This term has been coined among others by Peter Weingart. For an authoritative synthesis of the emergence and effects of this science-media-coupling see Rödder, Simone; Franzen, Martina; Weingart, Peter, eds. The sciences’ media connection – communication to the public and its repercussions. Dordrecht: Springer; 2012. The multiple Eudald Carbonell: The various roles of Catalonia’s most popular archaeologist 393 Dynamis 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 social space in the last years of Francoism for its members to assert their own identity. Top of their agenda was to determine since when Catalonia had been inhabited and whether there had been a Lower Paleolithic in the Northeast of the peninsula 6. Clearly, identity politics has different levels and in the 1970s, Canal and his fellow members from the AAG mostly used the terms «Girona» or the «comarques gironines» (referring to the Northern part of Catalonia) more often than «Catalonia» or «Catalan» 7. Canal soon became an important mentor for the young archaeologist 8. Carbonell’s personal research agenda or one might even say his «mission» to find evidence for the earliest human settlement in Catalonia and later in Spain can be traced right back to the beginning of his career in the mid-1970s. It needs to be situated in this specific Catalan context of searching for one’s own historic roots in a community that was only about to professionalize itself. When I interviewed Carbonell in March 2010, he told me that he participated in his first excavation in 1973 and gave his first academic paper in 1974, when he was barely twenty years old. In these years Canal, Carbonell and other members of the AAG were excavating open-air fluvial terraces of the river Ter in the region of Girona. In the summer of 1974, Carbonell literally went out of the door of his home in Ribes de Freser to look for stone tools nearby. This led to his first scholarly publication in 1976 where he and his co-authors proudly claimed to have proven the existence of a Lower Paleolithic in Catalonia 9. An important actor in the network of the AAG was the French pa- leoanthropologist Henry de Lumley (b. 1934). His contacts with Catalan researchers date back to the early 1960s. Together with Eduard Ripoll (1923-2006), a prehistorian at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, de Lumley had already excavated the Neanderthal site of Abric Romaní (Middle Paleolithic) in Capellades 10. Subsequently, from 1964 onwards de 6. The Lower Paleolithic is defined as the period in which stone tools were used for the first time. Therefore the exact time span differs from region to region. 7. Canal, Josep; Soler, Narcís. El Paleolític a les comarques gironines. Girona: Caixa d’Estalvis Pro- vincial; 1976. 8. Carbonell, Eudald; Bellmunt, Cinta S. Els somnis de l’evolució. Barcelona: La Magrana; 2003, p. 79. 9. Carbonell, Eudald; Culí, Núria; Busquets, Ramon. El Paleolític inferior i mitja a la conca del Freser. Cypsela. 1976; 1: 23-27; Carbonell; Bellmunt, n. 8, p. 77. 10. Ripoll, Eduard; Lumley, Henry de. Le remplissage et l’industrie Moustérienne de l’abri Romaní. L’ Anthropologie. 1962; 66 (1-2): 1-35. Ripoll, Eduard; Lumley, Henry de. El Paleolítico medio en Cataluña. Ampurias. 1964-1965; 26-27: 1-70. Oliver Hochadel 394 Dynamis 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 Lumley made a name for himself with his discoveries of hominid fossils in the Arago cave near Tautavel, today dated at about 450,000 years 11. The site is in Roussillon in France just across the border from Spain. In 1971, de Lumley had mentioned —very briefly— «une importante industrie pa- léolitique» at Puig d’en Roca 12. Already in 1972, Canal followed this lead when he started to excavate the site near Girona 13. Later Carbonell joined him and they claimed to have found numerous stone tools from the Lower Paleolithic 14. In 1973, Josep Canal contacted de Lumley personally to point him to the excavations the AAG carried out in Northern Catalonia. In his letter to de Lumley, Canal stresses the lack of scholars able to decipher and date the complicated stratigraphy 15. The common interest of the AAG and de Lumley was to provide evidence for an early habitation of the region of Roussillon-Catalonia. Obviously their discoveries would re-enforce each other. It was a «win-win-situation» 16. Their collaboration may be called a «deal». In return for access to promising sites in Catalonia, de Lumley would provide his expertise and his growing international reputation and the network that came with it. And in 1976 the French paleoanthropologist had something very special to offer. 3. The exhibition on Catalonian prehistory in 1976 In mid-September 1976, the Ninth Congress of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (IUPPS) took place in Nice in Southern France. The secretary of the gathering was Henry de Lumley. As is custom 11. For a recent overview and contextualization of the discoveries see Lumley, Henry de. La Grande Histoire des premiers hommes européens. Paris: Odile Jacob; 2007, p. 171-198. 12. Lumley, Henry de. Le Paléolitique inferieur et moyen du midi Méditerranéen dans son cadre géologique. Vol 2. Paris: CNRS; 1971, p. 330, also see figure on p. 321. 13. Canal; Soler, n. 7, p. 23; Abad, Joan et al. Humans! Els primers pobladors de Catalunya. Barcelona: Fundació «La Caixa»; 2000, p. 11; Carbonell; Bellmunt, n. 8, p. 79. 14. Canal, Josep; Carbonell Eudald. Les estacions prehistòriques del Puig d’en Roca (Girona). Girona: Associació Arqueològica; 1979. For the «history» of site see Carbonell, Eudald; Pons, Enriqueta. Girona abans de Girona. Prehistòria. Girona: Ajuntament de Girona; 1987, p. 16-17 and Ter- radas, Xavier. La prehistòria. In: Alberch, Xavier; Burch, Josep, eds. Història del Gironès. Vol. III. Història de les comarques gironines. Girona: Diputació de Girona; 2002, p. 23-127 (43-48). 15. Letter J. Canal to H. de Lumley, 24 Mar 1973, reprinted in Carbonell, Eudald et al. El complex del Plistocè mitjà del Puig d’en Roca. Madrid: CSIC; 1988, p. 135. 16. Canal; Carbonell, n. 14, p. 2. The multiple Eudald Carbonell: The various roles of Catalonia’s most popular archaeologist 395 Dynamis 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 with this kind of congress, several excursions to archaeological sites were scheduled. Already in 1973, de Lumley had contacted the archaeologist Lluís Pericot (1899-1978) from the Universitat de Barcelona to include a site from Northern Catalonia in the program, suggesting Empúries 17. The prospect of receiving a substantial number of prehistorians from all over the world gave rise to the idea to present the recent discoveries to the international community. In fact, the AAG mounted the twin exhibitions «El Paleolític a les comarques gironines» 18. One part was shown in Girona in the medieval Fontana d’Or building and the other one in the archaeological museum in Banyoles. Canal and the young prehistorian Narcís Soler edited the accompanying publication. For Carbonell this brought the opportunity to present the tools found at Puig d’en Roca 19. The twin exhibitions opened on 30 September 1976. The headline in La Vanguardia Española was precisely the «message» the AAG wanted to convey to the general public: «The existence of man in Catalonia dates back to the Lower Paleolithic». Foreign scientists from «22 countries» —as the newspaper proudly remarked— were invited to applaud and thereby bestow international respectability on the exhibition and the research that had led to it 20. The visitors from abroad not only visited Empúries (a Greek colony, i.e. an excavation of classical antiquity) but also some of the recently discovered Palaeolithic sites 21. In mounting the exhibition, the AAG was able to rely on the support of museums, associations and in particular, local political bodies as well as financial support from the Caja de Ahorros Provincial, a local bank. The Servei d’Investigacions Arqueològiques of the Diputació Provincial de Girona (the Provincial Office of the Province of Girona) acted as co-organizer of the exhibitions. The president of the Comité de Honor was no one else but the Spanish Queen Sofía herself 22. 17. Letter H. de Lumley to L. Pericot, 27 Sep 1973, Fons Pericot. Correspondència / Congrès Int. des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques (IXe: Niça, 1976), Secció de Manuscrits, Biblioteca de Catalunya, Barcelona. 18. Canal; Soler, n. 7, p. 9. 19. Canal; Soler, n. 7. 20. Vila, J. Gerona: La existencia del hombre en Cataluña remonta al paleolítico inferior. La Vanguardia Española. 6 Nov 1976: 44; Carbonell; Pons, n. 14, p. 17, Canal, Josep; Carbonell, Eudald. Catalunya Paleolítica. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya; 1989, p. 5. 21. La Vanguardia Española. 22 Sep 1976: 32. 22. Europa Press. La reina doña Sofía presidenta de honor de dos exposiciones sobre la prehistoria gerundense. La Vanguardia Española. 23 Sep 1976: 38. Oliver Hochadel 396 Dynamis 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 At the exhibition in Girona, music from Pink Floyd’s famous record Dark side of the moon was played 23. This may seem like a quaint detail yet it also indicates that the exhibition aspired to be «modern» or even to form part of a counter-culture. According to Carbonell and Canal, the huge success of the exhibition in Girona —that is the comparatively large number of 15,000 visitors— motivated Eduard Ripoll (at the time director of the Museu Arqueològic de Barcelona) to transfer the exhibition at least in parts to Barcelona 24. Here it was shown between December 1976 and January 1977 in the Biblioteca de Catalunya. The slim catalogue authored by Carbonell himself conveys an idea of what was displayed in the glass cabinets. The objects representing the Paleolithic were all stone tools, a substantial part of them from Puig d’en Roca 25. The «timing» of the exhibitions on Catalan prehistory in Girona and Banyoles barely a year after Franco’s death in November 1975 is striking. The broad institutional support from the political authorities in Girona may be interpreted as an attempt of Catalan identity politics in the midst of a major political transition. Antoni Xuclà i Bas, at the time president of the Diputació Provincial de Girona, emphasized how these investigations would facilitate «a better understanding of the simple beginnings of our past that will help us to understand the present» 26. At the same time it is important to stress the continuities between the late dictatorship and the early democracy. The investigations of the AAG, the formation of a network of Catalan archaeologists and the contact established with French researchers such as Henry de Lumley date back to the 1960s and early 1970s. 23. Carbonell; Bellmunt, n. 8, p. 81. 24. Carbonell, Eudald; Canal Josep. El Paleolític inferior a les comarques gironines: el començament. In: Alberch, Xavier; Burch, Josep, eds. Història del Gironès. Vol. III, Història de les comarques gironines. Girona: Diputació de Girona; 2002, 48-50 (49-50); Carbonell; Bellmunt, n. 8, p. 81. 25. Carbonell, Eudald. Exposició: Materials paleolítics de les comarques gironines. Biblioteca de Catalunya, Desembre 1976-Gener 1977. S.l.; n.d. [1976], p. 14-20. 26. Canal; Soler, n. 7, p. 7. One may suspect that the situation in other Spanish regions (what would soon become the Autonomous Communities) was somehow similar to the one in Girona respectively Catalonia. In the transición, politicians expected archaeologists (and other historical disciplines) to provide a narrative of «roots». Yet clearly more research is needed to assess this. The multiple Eudald Carbonell: The various roles of Catalonia’s most popular archaeologist 397 Dynamis 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 4. Fighter against the «establishment» So far we have based our narrative on Carbonell’s early career primarily on contemporary sources from the 1970s. The picture that emerges includes the following features: the research of the AAG, as well as their efforts to popularize their findings could count on very broad support, and their claims were favorably received. Local and regional institutions and authorities, the Catalan media as well as renowned prehistorians from abroad applauded their results. This narrative changes significantly if we look at later sources in particular from the turn of the millennium onwards. Here Carbonell, Canal and their fellow members from the AAG claim that they received little scientific recognition at the time. Carbonell even speaks of a «very hostile environment» and that nobody would believe in the discoveries made in the Vall del Freser 27. In 2002, Carbonell and Canal maintained that they had to pursue their research «practically at the margin of the official institutions». Allegedly it had been extremely difficult to convince the «authorities» that the stones that had been found were actually man-made tools and not shaped by the elements 28. They argue that at the time the general opinion was that there had been no Lower Paleolithic in Catalonia. Between 1973 and 1976, the AAG «informed the academic authorities about the results of the research. Yet because of their indifference, there was no other way but to look for acknowledgement in other spheres» 29. In other words, the AAG had to go public and mount the twin exhibitions on Catalan prehistory in the autumn of 1976. According to this account, it was the approval of the prehistorians from the IUSPP Congress in Nice who had come to Girona that settled the «debate» and silenced the «critics» 30. It comes as no surprise that Henry de Lumley is credited with a central role in this narrative. Unlike the «authorities» in Spain, he did believe in an early inhabitation of Catalonia, citing Puig d’en Roca as an example 31. 27. Carbonell; Bellmunt, n. 8, p. 77. 28. Carbonell; Canal, n. 24, p. 50. 29. Abad et al., n. 13, p. 19. Very similar the Catalan Wikipedia-entry on Carbonell: ca.wikipedia. org/wiki/Eudald_Carbonell_i_Roura (cited 11 Feb 2013). 30. Abad et al., n. 13, p. 19. 31. Carbonell; Canal, 2002 n. 19, p. 49; Carbonell; Bellmunt, n. 8, p. 79-80; Abad et al., n. 13, p. 19, also see p. 11. Francesc, Solà. Josep Canal. Arqueólogo; representante de la Associació d’Arqueologia de Girona. La Vanguardia (Vivir en Girona). 13 Dec 2000: 2. Oliver Hochadel 398 Dynamis 2013; 33 (2): 389-416 However doubts or criticism as regards the findings of the AAG are absent from the sources of the 1970s. There is at least no evidence in print to support the picture of Canal and his fellow members of the AAG, including the young Carbonell, as underdogs fighting a dogmatic academic establishment. In fact, archaeology and in particular prehistoric archaeology were barely institutionalized in (Northern) Catalonia at the time. It is no coincidence that the AAG emerged on a private initiative and was at least not formally linked to any academic institution. Until 1991 Girona had no university, only some smaller units of tertiary education. This included for example the Col·legi Universitari de Girona which formed part of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. And it is in this institutional context that Carbonell pursued his undergraduate studies in the 1970s. When Canal and Carbonell speak of the «official science», they might have had Miquel Tarradell’s (1920-1995) Les arrels de Catalunya (The roots of Catalonia) in mind. In this classic work on Catalonian prehistory from 1962, Tarradell did indeed state the absence of a Lower Paleolithic in Catalonia. Yet he did so in a non-dogmatic and cautious way: absence of evidence is no evidence of absence. In other words: none of the stone tools that had been found so far suggest a very early population of what is today Catalonia. And Tarradell explicitly stated that his claim might be falsified by new discoveries 32. The other eminent Catalan (prehistoric) archaeologist of the time was Lluís Pericot who we mentioned already. Yet he actually defended the interpretation of the AAG that the stone tools in question were handmade, as Carbonell acknowledges himself 33. In his autobiography of 2003, Carbonell explicitly mentions three «skeptics» who denied (at first) the existence of a Lower Paleolithic in Catalonia: Eduard Ripoll, Josep Fernández de Villalta and Joan Maluquer de Motes 34. Ripoll had a chair at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and was an expert on prehistoric art. He had been Carbonell’s supervisor for his tesina (MA thesis): As mentioned above, it was Ripoll who brought the Girona exhibition of the AAG to Barcelona, hence his «resistance» was at 32. Tarradell, Miquel. Les arrels de Catalunya. Barcelona: Vicens Vives; 1962, p. 5; compare Soler, Narcís. El paleolític de Catalunya, entre les arrels i el segle XXI. Cota Zero. 2003; 18: 18-33 (18-19). 33. Carbonell; Pons, n. 14, p. 17. 34. Carbonell; Bellmunt, n. 8, p. 80.