Wil Roebroeks

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Wil Roebroeks
Spinozapremie (2007)
Eureka! prijs (1991)
Scientific career
FieldsArchaeology, Human evolution
InstitutionsLeiden University

Wil Roebroeks (born 5 May 1955) is the

Spinozapremie, the most prestigious scientific award in the Netherlands.[3]

Career

Wil Roebroeks was born on 5 May 1955 in

cum laude in 1979. He then studied prehistory at Leiden University, graduating in 1982. In 1989 he obtained his PhD from the same university, again graduating cum laude. In 1991 he won the Eureka! prijs award for his popular science
work Oermensen in Nederland. In 1996 he became a professor at Leiden University.

In 2005 Roebroeks achieved international fame when challenging the Out of Africa theory in Nature.[5][6] In another article in the same journal Roebroeks published on the discovery of stone tools in Great Britain, older than expected and contradicting the previously held belief that Northern Europe was settled much later than the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.[7][8]

In 2007 the

Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek awarded Roebroeks the Spinozapremie. The jury report highlighted his various original contributions to the study of human prehistory and called him the most prominent Dutch archaeologist nationally and internationally.[9]

In 2009 Roebroeks again made the international news with his work on Krijn, the first Dutch Neanderthal fossil.[10] This discovery prompted him to argue for the founding of a North-Sea Institute to deal with the archaeological material found in that sea.[11]

In 2012 he published an article about the earliest ochre use of early Neandertals. The discovery was made at the Maastricht-Belvédère archaeological site which has an estimated age of 250.000 BP.[12]

Publications

Roebroeks has published in a number of academic journals including Current Anthropology, Nature and the Journal of Human Evolution. What follows is a selection of his most prominent publications:

References

  1. ^ "Wil Roebroeks: wieg van de mens", De Volkskrant (in Dutch), 2007, retrieved 2009-06-22
  2. ^ "Wil Roebroeks". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 18 July 2015.
  3. ^ "Spinozapremies naar archeologie, insectenkunde, natuurkunde en recht" [Spinoza Prizes for archaeology, insect science, physics and law]. de Volkskrant (in Dutch). 4 June 2007. Archived from the original on 29 June 2009.
  4. ^ "Johannus Wilhelmus Maria Roebroeks (Wil)" (in Dutch). Leiden University. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  5. S2CID 4405913
  6. ^ Bakalar, Nicholas (2005), "Did Early Humans First Arise in Asia, Not Africa?", National Geographic News, archived from the original on June 4, 2011, retrieved 2009-06-22
  7. S2CID 4418867
  8. ^ Owen, James (2005), "Stone Tools Reveal Humans Lived in Britain 700,000 Years Ago", National Geographic News, archived from the original on December 20, 2005, retrieved 2009-06-22
  9. ^ "Juryrapport voor prof. dr. J.W.M. (Wil) Roebroeks", Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (in Dutch), 2007, retrieved 2009-06-22
  10. ^ Rincon, Paul (2009-06-15), "Sea gives up Neanderthal fossil", BBC, retrieved 2009-06-22
  11. ^ "Archeologen willen Noordzee-Instituut", Algemeen Dagblad (in Dutch), 2009, retrieved 2009-06-24
  12. PMID 22308348
    .