Yves Coppens paleontologue

Description: Yves Coppens (born 1934) is a French anthropologist. He has studied ancient hominids and has had multiple published works on this topic, and has also produced a film.

Coppens is one of the co-discoverers of Lucy. The "Rift Valley theory", proposed and supported by the Dutch primatologist Adriaan Kortlandt, became better known when it was later espoused and renamed by Coppens as the "East Side Story". Richard Dawkins says in The Ancestor's Tale: "In his native France, Yves Coppens is widely cited as the discoverer of Lucy, even as the "father" of Lucy. In the English-speaking World, this important discovery is attributed to Donald Johanson.

The asteroid 172850 Coppens is named in his honour.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Coppens)