Death of émilie campmas

Emilie CAMPMAS (1983-2019)

Emilie passed away on Friday, March 8, 2019 after five years of tenacious struggle against this terrible disease that is cancer. After having held, from 2014 to 2016, an ATER position at the Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, she had recently joined CNRS as a researcher at the TRACES laboratory. A relentless worker, with bulimia of knowledge, Emilie was a young researcher out of the ordinary as much for her dynamism, her scientific rigor, her sense of the collective, her so communicative enthusiasm ! Laureate of several prizes, including a L’Oréal France thesis grant for women and science in 2011 or more recently the Young Researcher Award in Prehistoric and Anthropological Archeology from SAMRA and the Award from Fondation des Treilles, she became in a few years an essential researcher enjoying full recognition in the field of expertise that was her: the adaptation to the coastal environment of Paleolithic hunters-collectors.

An archaeozoologist specialized in large fauna and malacofauna, Emilie launched her career during a Master 1 course conducted at UTAH in 2006 on the fauna from the excavation materials of cave Abri du Moulin in Troubat. Her doctorate “Characterization of the occupation of the sites of the region of Temara (Morocco) in the Upper Pleistocene and new data on the subsistence of Middle Paleolithic men of North Africa: Examples of taphonomic and archeozoological approaches carried out on the faunas of El Harhoura 2 and El Mnasra “, that she defended in 2012 at the University of Bordeaux 1, was the starting point of her problematic on coastal economies. Having demonstrated, thanks to an exemplary taphonomic study of the faunal assemblages, the decisive role of the littoral in the modalities of occupation of the territories by the Aterian and then Ibero-Amaurian human groups, her results had then brought her to be interested in the thorny issue of cultural modernity for these “archaic” populations. The early diversification of food resources, especially the consumption of marine shellfish, coupled with the presence of Nassarius sp. symbolic markers, had allowed her to draw a convincing parallel with what is observed in South Africa’s anatomically modern men, opening up new perspectives on the evolutionary trajectories of these populations and the role played by coastal environments in the emergence of so-called modern behaviors. On these issues, she co-organized two sessions: one in 2016, at the SAfA Congress “The role of North Africa in the emergence and development of modern behaviors: Integrated Approach”, the other in 2018 PANAF Congress “Diversity of hominin subsistence strategies across Africa from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene”.

In parallel with these major anthropological questions, the fine analysis of the bone material was at the heart of Emilie’s approach. Particularly active in the field of taphonomy with her strong involvement in the European Network for Quaternary Taphonomy, Emilie was also a field scientist. Since 2006, she was a member of the Franco-Moroccan mission “El Harhoura-Témara” and in 2016 she led an ethnographic mission on the coastal fringe of the Atlantic around Rabat-Témara to combine archaeological and ethnological data for the exploitation of marine molluscs. In order to fully discuss the complementarity of terrestrial and marine animal resources, she had expanded her areas of expertise to the field of malacology, leading her to train with Catherine Dupont and begin to develop experimental approaches on the use of mollusc shells as a butcher’s knife. Seeking to understand the diversity of coastal adaptations, she was just beginning to extend her research to the entire circummediterranean zone both in the Neanderthals of the European Pleistocene and in the fully anatomically modern humans of the late Upper Pleistocene and early Holocene in North Africa and Eurasia. During all these years, I had the chance to work with her first as a supervisor alongside Patrick Michel and then as a colleague. I salute here her courage and her scientific career so rich and intellectually stimulating. Emilie, we’ll miss you …

Sandrine Costamagno, March 31, 2019

Selected bibliography

Campmas, E., Stoetzel, E., Denys, C. 2018. African carnivores as taphonomic agents: Contribution of modern coprogenic sample analysis to their identification. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, p. 1–27.

Campmas, E., Chakroun, A., Chahid, D., Lenoble, A., Boudad, L., El Hajraoui, M.A., Nespoulet, R. 2018. Subsistance en zone côtière durant le Middle Stone Age en Afrique du Nord : étude préliminaire de l’unité stratigraphique 8 de la grotte d’El Mnasra (Témara, Maroc). In : Costamagno, S., Dupont C., Dutour, O., Gourichon L., Vialon D. (dir.), Animal symbolisé – Animal exploité. Du Paléolithique à la Protohistoire. Actes du 141ème Congrès du CTHS(Rouen, avril 11-13, 2016). Paris, Édition électronique du CTHS, p. 112-134.

Campmas E., Stoetzel E., Oujaa A., Scerri E. (dir.) 2018. Special Issue: The Role of North Africa in the Emergence and Development of Modern Behaviors: An Integrated Approach. African Archaeological Review, 34.

Campmas, E. 2017. Integrating human-animal relationships into new data on Aterian complexity: a paradigm shift for the North African Middle Stone Age. African Archaeological Review, 34, p. 469–491.

Campmas, E., Michel, P., Costamagno, S., Nespoulet, R., El Hajraoui, M.A. 2017. Which predators are responsible for faunal accumulations at the Late Pleistocene layers of El Harhoura 2 Cave (Témara, Morocco)? Comptes Rendus Palevol, 16, p. 333-350.

Campmas, E., Amani, F., Morala, A., Debénath, A., El Hajraoui, M.A., Nespoulet, R. 2016. Initial insights into Aterian hunter-gatherer settlements on coastal landscapes: the example of Unit 8 of El Mnasra Cave (Témara, Morocco). Quaternary International, 413, p. 5-20.

Campmas, E., Michel, P., Costamagno, S., Amani, F., Stoetzel, E., Nespoulet, R., El Hajraoui, A. M. 2015. Were Upper Pleistocene human/non-human predator occupations at the Témara caves (El Harhoura 2 and El Mnasra, Morocco) influenced by climate change? Journal of Human Evolution, 78, p. 122-143.

Campmas, E. 2012. Caractérisation de l’occupation des sites de la région de Témara (Maroc) au Pléistocène supérieur et nouvelles données sur la subsistance des hommes du Paléolithique moyen d’Afrique du Nord : exemples des études taphonomique et archéozoologique menées sur les faunes d’El Harhoura 2 et d’El Mnasra. Thèse de Doctorat, Bordeaux, Université Bordeaux 1, 592 p.

Campmas, E., Daujeard, C., Lenoir, M., Ajas, A., Baillet, M., Bourgeon, L., Delvignes, V., Robert, B., Teyssandier, J., Armand, D., Rigaud, S. 2011. Nouvelles données sur le Magdalénien de l’Entre-deux-Mers : la faune de l’Abri Vidon (Juillac, Gironde). Préhistoire du Sud-Ouest, 19, p. 3-18.

Campmas, E., Laroulandie, V., Michel, P., Amani, F., Nespoulet, R., El Hajraoui, M. A. 2010. A Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) in North Africa: Discovery of a bone remain in Neolithic layer of El Harhoura 2 Cave (Temara, Morocco). In : Prummel, W., Zeiler, J.T. et Brinkhuizen D.C. (dir.), Birds in Archaeology. Proceeding of the 6th meeting of the ICAZ bird working group in Groningen (Groningen 23-27 Août, 2008). Groningen Archaeological Studies, 12, p. 233-240.

Michel, P., Campmas, E., Stoetzel, E., Nespoulet, R., El Hajraoui, A. M., Amani, F. 2010. La grande faune du Paléolithique supérieur (niveau 2) et du Paléolithique moyen (niveau 3) de la grotte d’El Harhoura 2 (Témara, Maroc) : étude paléontologique, reconstitutions paléoécologiques et paléoclimatiques. Historical Biology, 22, p. 327-340.

Campmas, E., Beauval, C. 2008. Consommation osseuse des carnivores : résultats de l’étude de l’exploitation de carcasses de bœufs (Bos taurus) par des loups captifs. Annales de Paléontologie, 98, p. 167-186.

Emilie Campmas


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