Lartet, Édouard Amant Isidore Hip-Polyte

(b. St.-Guiraud, Gers, France, 15 April 1801; d. Seissan, Gers, France, 28 January 1871),

paleontology, prehistory.

Descended from an old family of landed proprietors established for at least 500 years in the vicinity of Casetlnau-Barbarens, Lartet spent his childhood on the family estate of Enpourqueron. While attending the collège in Auch, he received from Napoleon I, who was visiting the city, one of the medals awarded to the three most deserving pupils. Lartet went to Toulouse to study law and received his license in 1820. His diploma was signed by Georges Cuvier, who was then a counsellor of state. In 1821 Lartet went to Paris as a probationary lawyer. Already attracted to the natural sciences, however, he attended courses at the Collège de France and visited the Muséum d’Historie Naturelle. He also enjoyed browsing through the bookstalls along the banks of the Seine in the hope of discovering some rare book on natural history.

Having completed his probationary period, Lartet returned to Gers, where he had been called by his elderly father, who wished to divide his wealth among his children. From this time Lartet lived in the country, managing the property that he had inherited. He often gave free legal advice to the peasants who lived in the vicinity;aware of his interests, they repaid him by bringing him strange objects that they had found during the course of their work: medals, stone axes, shells, bones. One day a peasant brought a fossil tooth that Lartet recognized, after some research, as that of a Mastodon. His vocation was now settled. He hastened to acquire the books necessary to further his knowledge and to guide him in the paleontological research he wished to undertake. Lartet explored the Tertiary terrain of Gers;and toward the end of 1834 he came upon the rich fossil deposit of Sansan, where he was to discover more than ninety genera and species of fossil mammals and reptiles. His son reports: “For fifteen years he made excavations at his own expense and devoted late evenings to the study and classification of his material.” Aware of the importance of these discoveries, at the beginning of 1834 Lartet sent étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilarie a letter on this subject, one later published in the Bulletin de la Société géologique de France.

It was the discovery in 1836 of the first anthropomorphic fossil ape, Pliopithecus, that revealed to Lartet the possibility of discovering human fossil remains. Encouraged by these first results, he continued his investigations with remarkable perseverance, gathering an abundant harvest of fossil remains, many of which were contributed to the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

Lartet married in 1840 and had one son, Louis, who also became a scientist. In order to supervise his son’s education more closely, Lartet decided in 1851 to move to Toulouse, where his son was attending the lycée. He remained there for only two years, having resolved to go to Paris, where he would be able to devote himself completely to the work he liked best. With A. Gaudry he investigated the identity of the fossil remains from Pikermi, Greece, and published notes on the paleontology of the Tertiary.

Lartet’s memoir on the ancient migrations of the mammals of the Recent period (1858) presaged the turn his career was to take in 1860. He was particularly interested in the discoveries made by Boucher de Perthes of chipped flint tools in the Somme Valley. Lartet himself had long been concerned with the antiquity of man. His belief in the continuity of life excluded the possibility of a sudden great upheaval that would have interrupted the regular succession of living creatures. His excavations in 1860 at the prehistoric sites of Massat (Ariège) and Aurignac (Haute-Garonne) yielded definite proof of the contemporaneity of man and extinct animal species and enabled him to establish, in 1861, a paleontological chronology based on the study of the large Quaternary mammals. Pursuing his research in this area, in 1863 he explored, along with the wealthy English collector Henry Christy, numerous grottoes in Périgord, particularly La Madeleine, Le Moustier, and Les Eyzies. The discovery of carved and sculpted objects furnished new proof of the existence of prehistoric art. Their finds later enriched the collections of the Musèedes Antiquitès Nationales in St.-Germain.

On the opening of this museum in 1867, Lartet was made an officer of the Legion of Honor. That same year he presided over the International Congress of Archaeology and Prehistoric Anthropology. In 1865 publication of the Reliquiae aquitanicae began in London. This magnificent work was the fruit of Lartet’s collaboration with his friend Christy in the excavations in Périgord.

Lartet was named professor of paleontology at the Musèum d’Histoire Naturelle in March 1869; but already afflicted with the disease to which he succumbed two years later, he could not carry out his academic duties and returned to his estate in Gers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. A detailed bibliography of Lartet’s writings is in Vie et travaux de Èdouard Larted(see below), pp. 77-80. The some 40 titles include Notice sur la colline de sansan(Auch, 1851); “Sur la dentition des probosci-diens fossiles et sur la distribution gèographique et strati-graphique de leurs dèbris en Europe,” in Bulletin de la Société géologique de France, 2nd ser., 16 (1859),469-515; “Nouvellous recherches sur la coexistence de 1’homme et des grands mammifères fossiles rèputès caractèristiques de la dernière pèriode glacière,” in Annales des sciences natu-relles, 4th ser., 15 (1861),177-253; “Sur des figures d’animaux gravèes ou sculptèes et autres produits d’art et d’industrie rapportables aux temps primordiaux de la pèriode humaine, “in Revue d’archèologie (1865), written with H.Christy; and Reliquiae aquitanicae, Being Contrib-utions to the Archeololgy and Palaeontology of Perigord…, 2 vols. (London, 1865-1875), written with H. Christy.

II. Secondary Literature. Vie et travaux de Édouard Lartet(Paris, 1872) is a collection of notices published following his death; of particular interest are those by P. Fischer and E.T. Hamy. Also of value are G.Brègail, Un èminent palèontologue gersois, Édouard Lartet(Auch, 1948); Franck Bourdier, L’art prèhistorique et ses essais d’interpr$eacutee;tation(paris, 1962); E.Cartailhac,” Édouard Lartet. Une fèconde dècouverte á Aurignac, “in Revue du Comminges, 33 (1918),55-59; D.Dupuy, Notice biogra-phique sur èdouard Lartet(paris, 1873); and L.Mèroc, “èdouard Lartet et son röle dans l’èlaboration de la prè-histoire,” in Aurignace et l’aurignacien. Centenaire des fouilles d’èdouard Larted(Toulouse,1963), pp. 7-18.

A. M. Monseigny

A. Cailleux