Louis Lartet was a French geologist who specialized in paleontology and discovered the original Cro-Magnon skeletons. He also served as a professor of geology at the University of Toulouse.
Background
Louis Lartet was born on December 18, 1840, in Castelnau-Magnoac, France. His father, Édouard Lartet, was a prominent geologist and prehistorian who played a key role in the 1860s and 1870s in finding evidence that humans had lived during the Quaternary period.
Education
After two years at the lycée in Toulouse, Lartet continued his studies in Paris, where his family had moved. His father often entertained French and foreign scientists, both at his laboratory and at home; undoubtedly Lartet soon became familiar with the scientific problems discussed at these gatherings.
In 1862 Lartet was named préparateur at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. In the same year, he accompanied the geologist Édouard de Verneuil on one of his many trips to Spain. While there Lartet made interesting observations concerning geology and prehistory that were published in the Bulletin de la Société géologique de France.
Immediately after receiving his licence ès sciences Lartet was chosen by de Luynes to participate as a geologist on an expedition that took him from Lebanon to the Red Sea by way of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea (1864). The trip furnished Lartet with the subject of his doctoral dissertation, Essai sur la géologie de la Palestine et des contrées avoisinantes, which he successfully defended in 1869.
Career
In 1867 and 1868 Lartet was secretary of the International Congresses of Anthropology, held in Paris and London, respectively. Lartet’s name, however, remains associated chiefly with the study of the Cro-Magnon deposit, the site of one of the most important discoveries in human paleontology. In April 1868 he was commissioned by the minister of education, Victor Duruy, to verify the authenticity of this discovery.
Apparently the Franco-Prussian War, in which Lartet had served as quartermaster-sergeant, and the death of his father in January 1871 dealt a serious blow to what had promised to be a fruitful career. At the end of the war, Lartet returned to Paris but remained there for only a short time. In 1873 he was named suppléant professor of geology at the Faculty of Sciences of Toulouse, and in July 1879 he became a full professor. Nevertheless, teaching apparently did not fulfill his aspirations. He wrote to his friend Ernest-Théodore Hamy in 1882: "I often wish, seeing that we have grown dull as college teachers, to throw off the official livery and return to Paris to resume, like my father, the disinterested study of science." He was not able to realize this desire. Apart from some observations concerning the geology and prehistory of the Pyrenees, Lartet spent the remainder of his career teaching. He had to retire prematurely because of poor health.
Lartet became a member of the Société archéologique du midi de la France in 1879, the Société d'agriculture in 1880; the Académie des sciences in 1882, and the Société d'histoire naturelle in 1882.
Société archéologique du midi de la France
,
France
1879 - 1899
Société d'agriculture
,
France
1880 - 1899
Académie des sciences
,
France
1882 - 1899
Société d'histoire naturelle
,
France
1882 - 1899
Connections
Lartet probably was married, but nothing is known about his family.