Émile Licent (1876–1952; with the adopted Chinese name, 桑志华, while he was working in China) was a French

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

trained as a natural historian. He spent more than twenty-five years researching in

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

. His expeditions spread across various parts of Northern and Central China (including the provinces of

Shandong Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...

and eastern part of the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...

). Upon his first arrival at Tianjin in 1914, he established the Musée Hoangho Paiho (it was known as the 'Beijiang Museum' among the Chinese), one of the earliest of its kind in China. The Museum survived the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and changed its name to Tianjin Natural History Museum (TMNH) in 1952. He was a colleague of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in conducting archeological research in northern provinces of China in the 1920s. He and Chardin were the first to examine the

Shuidonggou Shuidonggou is an archaeological site and tourist attraction in Ordos City, Ordos, Yinchuan, Ningxia. It is the earliest paleolithic site in China, dating from over 30,000 years ago, and one of the AAAAA Tourist Attractions of China, a list of t ...

(水洞沟) ( Ordos Upland,

) archaeological site in northern China. Resent analysis of flaked stone artifacts from the most recent (1980) excavation at this site has identified an assemblage which constitutes the southernmost occurrence of an Initial Upper Paleolithic blade technology proposed to have originated in the Altai region of Southern Siberia. The lowest levels of the site are now dated from 40,000 to 25,000 years ago. He left China during the Second World War in 1939 after appointing one of his colleagues, Pierre Leroy (adopted Chinese name, 罗学宾), as Deputy Director of the Museum. Most of the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

mammal fossils and prehistoric human relics and tools that he and his colleagues discovered remain in the Museum. He was awarded an Order (铁十字骑士勋章) by the French government for his pioneering scientific works and explorations in China. Nothing much is known about his life or religious activities in France before and after his stay in China.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Licent, Emile 1876 births 1952 deaths French naturalists 20th-century French Jesuits Members of the French Academy of Sciences Jesuit scientists Presidents of the Société entomologique de France