Philippe-Charles or Philip Carel Schmerling (2 March 1791

Delft Delft () is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, and The Hague, to the northwest. Together with them, it is part of both the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolita ...

– 7 November 1836,

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far fro ...

) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

prehistorian Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

, pioneer in paleontology, and geologist. He is often considered the founder of

paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

. In 1829 he discovered the first

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ag ...

fossil in a cave in

Engis Engis (; wa, Indji) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. On 1 January 2006 Engis had a total population of 5,686. The total area is 27.74 km² which gives a population density of 205 inhabitants per km� ...

, the partial

cranium The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, th ...

of a small child, although it was not recognized as such until 1936, and is now thought to be between 30,000-70,000 years old. It was the second discovery of a fossil of the genus

Homo ''Homo'' () is the genus that emerged in the (otherwise extinct) genus '' Australopithecus'' that encompasses the extant species ''Homo sapiens'' ( modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely rela ...

after the discovery of the

Red Lady of Paviland The Red Lady of Paviland is an Upper Paleolithic partial skeleton of a male dyed in red ochre and buried in Wales 33,000 BP. The bones were discovered in 1823 by William Buckland in an archaeological dig at Goat's Hole Cave (Paviland cave) – ...

in Wales in 1823.

Life

Philipus Carel, later Philippe-Charles, Schmerling was the son of Dutch parents, Jan Carel, a trader from 's-Hertogenbosch, North Brabant, and Lucia van Koijck from Dordrecht. Schmerling studied medicine in

and

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...

. Afterwards he served as physician in the Dutch army between 1812 and 1816. On 17 October 1821 in

Venlo Venlo () is a city and municipality in the southeastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. It is situated in the province of Limburg, about 50 km east of the city of Eindhoven, 65 km north east of the provincial capital Maastricht, a ...

he married Elizabeth Douglas. They had two daughters, in 1823 and 1825. In 1822, Schmerling and his wive moved to

at which

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

he continued his studiesLiliane Henderickx, « Philippe Charles Schmerling (1790-1836) révèle l'antiquité de l'homme grâce aux dépôts antédiluviens des grottes liégeoises », ''Revue d'Archéologie et de Paléontologie '', n° 10, Centre d'archéologie et de paléontologie, Plainevaux, 1991, p. 24-66. and became Doctor of Medicine in 1825. His doctoral dissertation was on the subject ''De studii psychologiae in medicina utilitate et necessitate''. Charles Morren, « Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Philippe-Charles Schmerling », in ''Annuaire de l’Académie royale de Belgique'', Bruxelles, t. 4, 1838, p. 130-150.
Google Books)
/ref> In 1829 he excavated fossils in what are now named the

Schmerling Caves The Schmerling Caves (also known as Grottes d'Engis, meaning Engis Caves) are a group of caves located in Wallonia on the right bank of the stream called the Awirs, near the village of Awirs in Flémalle, Belgium. The caves are notable for their ...

, in the region of

Flémalle Flémalle (; wa, Flémåle) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. On January 1, 2006, Flémalle had a total population of 25,140. The total area is 36.68 km² which gives a population density of 685 inha ...

, in the

Meuse The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a ...

valley, between

and

Huy Huy ( or ; nl, Hoei, ; wa, Hu) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. Huy lies along the river Meuse, at the mouth of the small river Hoyoux. It is in the ''sillon industriel'', the former industrial ...

.Philippe Charles Schmerling, ''Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles découverts dans les cavernes de la province de Liège'', vol. I, P.-J. Collardin, Liège, 1833, 213 p., p. 24 et 126. Schmerling investigated about sixty calcareous caves of the provinces of Liège and Luxembourg during the following years. He became correspondent of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands in September 1836.

Works

* '', Liège, 1825 ; * « Cavernes à ossemens fossiles, découvertes jusqu’à ce jour dans la province de Liège » dans Philippe Vandermaelen, ''Dictionnaire géographique de la province de Liège'', Bruxelles, Établissement géographique, 1831, p. 3-7 des annexes; * ''Quelques observations sur la teinture de colchique et principalement sur son emploi dans les affections arthritiques et rhumatismales'', Liège, P.J. Collardin, 1832; * « Sur une caverne à ossemens de la province de Liége » dans le Bulletin de la Société géologique de France, t. III, 1833, p. 217-222; * « ' » dans ', 1, 1833, p. 38-48; * ''Recherches sur les ossements fossiles découverts dans les cavernes de la Province de Liège'', Liège, P.J. Collardin, 1833-1834 ; * « Renseignements sur la caverne à ossements dite le trou de Hogheur, dans le Luxembourg » dans le ''Bulletin de l’Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres de Belgique'', t. II, 1835, p. 271-275; * « Mémoire sur les ossemens fossiles à l'état pathologique, recueillis dans les cavernes de la province de Liège » dans ''Bulletins de l'Académie royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Bruxelles'', t. 2, 1835, p. 362-364; * « Description des ossemens fossiles à l'état pathologique, provenant des cavernes de la province de Liége » dans ''Bulletin de la Société géologique de France'', t. 7, 1835, p. 51-61; * « Notice sur quelques os de pachydermes découverts dans le terrain meuble près du village de Chokier » dans le ''Bulletin de l’Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres de Belgique'', t. III, 1836, p. 82.

References

External links

Biographie

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmerling, Philippe-Charles 1791 births 1836 deaths 19th-century Belgian historians Belgian paleontologists 19th-century Dutch historians Dutch paleontologists Dutch military doctors Leiden University alumni Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Paleoanthropologists People from Delft University of Liège alumni

Life

Works

See also

References

External links