The Orce conference was followed almost daily by Spanish newspapers and television.
During the week of the conference, the newspaper ABC published up to 10 articles and brief notes on Orce in its national and its Andalusian editions. El Periódico published five, El País published four, and La Vanguardia published three.132 On television, Orce was broadcast at least six times on the Andalusian channel Canal Sur.133 The same channel also devoted a fifteen-minute report in the investigative programme Los Reporteros to Orce, with the conference as a main topic.134 The nation-wide public television channel TV1 devoted two news pieces to the conference and on the nation-wide private television channels Antena 3 and Canal + Orce was featured at least once in the news.135 Some were long news pieces featuring interviews with some of the national and international scientists gathered in Orce and reports from the sites.136 Internationally, the conference
131 AJG-ICP: Letter from Tobias to Gibert, 18 November 1999.
132 De León-Sotelo, ABC 1995b; F.R.A. ABC 1995; Ruíz Antón, ABC 1995b; Troyano, ABC 1995; Ruíz Antón, ABC 1995c; S. C., ABC 1995; Redacción, ABC 1995a; Hurtado, ABC 1995; Ruíz Antón, ABC 1995a; Redacción, ABC 1995b;
Arias, El País 1995a; Arias, El País 1995b; Arias, El País 1995c; Cervera, El País 1995; Del Hoyo, El Periódico 1995a;
Del Hoyo, El Periódico 1995b; Garrido, El Periódico 1995; Del Hoyo/Madridejos, El Periódico 1995; Carbonell, El Periódico 1995; Turbón, La Vanguardia 1995; Redacción, La Vanguardia 1995; González, La Vanguardia 1995. See also: Aragay, Avui 1995.
133 Canal Sur 1995a; Canal Sur 1995b; Canal Sur 1995c; Canal Sur 1995d; Canal Sur 1995e; Canal Sur 1995f.
134 Canal Sur 1995g.
135 TV1 1995a; TV1 1995b; Canal Plus 1995; Antena 3 1995. TV coverage of the conference was obtained thanks to Lluís Gibert. The news items were collected by the Orce conference’s press office and this may make the compilation incomplete.
136 For instance: TV1 1995b and Canal Plus 1995.
was reported at least in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the British The Independent, and in the magazine British Archaeology.137 There were also other magazines and more specialised journals that published reports on the conference.138 Given all this media attention, it is not surprising that the Orce conference had sponsors that, for instance, posted their logos on the walls behind the speakers.
Fig. 3.7: Josep Gibert presenting the conference to the press a day before the event (left, Canal Sur 1995a). Tobias’s presentation in which we can see the sponsors’ logos in the background (right, OCVR 1995).
The majority of these reports, both on television and in newspapers, followed two lines of discourse. Firstly, they highlighted the significance of the conference and the ‘definitive evidence’
that the Orce Man was, in the end, the ‘First European’. As we saw in chapter two during the Southampton meeting, in their reports, journalists granted the authority to decide on the final acceptance of the Orce remains to the scientists gathered at the conference.139 For example, La Vanguardia featured a full-page article with a photo of Gibert and Tobias entitled ‘An international conference ensures that the Orce Man is the oldest European’.140 In their coverage of the conference, newspapers and television channels included several scientists’ opinions, which were mainly positive with regard to the Orce research. At the same time, some journalists reviewed some of the conference sessions, especially the opening and the closing sessions, which were also partially broadcast by television channels.141 According to El País, in the opening session, the prestigious scientists Phillip Tobias and Clark Howell stated that they were ‘convinced that the Orce skull belongs to a hominid’.142 El País also highlighted the Dutch scientist Paul Sondaar’s presentation at
137 Denison 1995; Keys, The Independent 1995; Weimer, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 1995.
138 For instance: Cohnen and Gómez, 1995 and Cela Conde 1996.
139 See section 2.6.
140 ‘Un congreso internacional asegura que el hombre de Orce es el europeo más antiguo’, Redacción, La Vanguardia 1995.
141 For instance, Canal Sur 1995a, or Moran, El Ideal de Granada 1995.
142‘Convencidos de que el cráneo de Orce pertenece a un homínido’, Arias, El País 1995.
the conference. Sondaar lectured on the crossing made by Indonesian hominids of a 20-kilometre sea area to reach the Flores Island 0.7 million years ago.143 According to the journalist, Sondaar’s claims supported Gibert’s own hypothesis about the earlier Strait of Gibraltar crossing.144 In general, the media concluded that the Orce Man was not only a man but also the ‘First European’, using the scientists’ opinions as their main evidence. The ‘icing on the cake’ was an article published in La Vanguardia ten days after the conference by Daniel Turbón, human evolution professor at the Universitat de Barcelona, entitled ‘The Orce Man: Josep Gibert was right’.145
It is also worth noting that, as we saw with the early popularisation of the discovery, the media appearance of the Orce Man at the conference was linked to a ‘lack of resources and excavation permits’ discourse. Again, the media highlighted how Gibert’s team had work with almost no economic support from the institutions. Not a journalist, but Phillip Tobias himself, in the opening session with politicians at the same table, found the exact quote for the media to define this situation: paraphrasing Churchill, Tobias noted how ‘never,’ in the field of human evolution ‘was so much done with so little…money’.146 Once again, the per aspera ad astra strategy had worked. In the closing session, Martín Delgado (PSOE), from the Junta’s Department of Culture, promised resources and permits to Gibert and to the Orce research project.147 He also noted that the committee in charge of granting excavation permits would be restructured. Diego Valderas, member of IU and president of the Andalusian Parliament, also attended the closing session of the conference. He recognised that he had been following the Orce controversy and conference through the media, finally stating that ‘Gibert has won the battle over public opinion and the battle with the Andalusian Parliament,’ in a clear reference to his party’s promotion of the Orce research in that same parliament.148 According to ABC, Delgado and Valderas also visited the Orce area sites with members of Gibert’s team.149
143 Ibid. and OCVR 1995. More on Sondaar in Reumer/de Voss 1999.
144Cervera, El País 1995.
145 ‘El Hombre de Orce: Josep Gibert tenía razón’, Turbón, La Vanguardia 1995.
146 ‘Nunca nadie hizo tanto con tan poco... dinero’, Morán, El Ideal de Granada 1995. The original Churchill quote referred to the British airmen and can be seen in: Wikipedia Contributors ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’.
147 OCVR 1995 and F.R.A. ABC 1995.
148 ‘Gibert ha ganado la batalla de la opinión pública y la de la cámara andaluza’ EFE, ABC 1995.
149 Ibid.
Fig. 3.8: From left to right: Tobias, Leandro Torres (mayor of Orce), Diego Valderas, Martín Delgado, and Josep Gibert during the conference closing session (left, OCVR 1995). Spanish Television journalist with the Orce remains display
and the Orce Man in the hand (right, TV1 1995b).
Valderas’s statement reveals how the Orce conference was not only organised to fight in a scientific dispute, but to win other ‘battles’ with other ‘publics’ that were also involved. The conference was conceived as a defence of the research project addressed to journalists and the general public. It was also a way to ‘show off’ to Orce’s inhabitants, who received lots of national and international scientists, were able to follow the sessions from the Orce town square, and could also see the displayed remains. For Orce’s politicians, it was real proof of how Gibert’s research could bring tourism and economic activity to the region. Finally, it was a result, as we have seen, of a strictly political struggle within the Andalusian Parliament.
In addition, at the end of the conference, newspapers also reported on the attendees’ support of the request to have Orce recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.150 During the final day of the conference, the organising committee circulated a statement to be signed by the attendees in support of this recognition and other claims made by Gibert’s team.151 Although most of them signed, it seems that later some of them did not completely agree with this initiative or with the way it was presented.152
The second line of discourse followed by the media was the emphasis on the dispute between Orce and Atapuerca over which was the hometown of the ‘First European’. Journalists mostly stated that up until then Atapuerca was in the lead but that the new evidence ensured victory for Orce.153 As a La Vanguardia article emphasised, ‘Scientists participating in the international conference on the Orce findings assure that the remains found there are a million years older than
150 González, La Vanguardia 1995 and Ruiz Antón, ABC 1995b.
151 OCVR 1995.
152 Personal Archive Jordi Agustí: Letter from Howell to Palmqvist 30 September 1995.
153 For instance, Redacción, La Vanguardia 1995; Cohnen and Gómez 1995; Antena 3 1995; Del Hoyo, El Periódico 1995a.
those found in Atapuerca (Burgos).’154 To consider this statement in its context we must recall that just before the Orce conference, the Atapuerca team had published an article in Science with their 700,000-year-old early Europeans.155 José María Bermúdez de Castro, a third of the Atapuerca research directors’ triumvirate, attended the Orce conference where he presented some of the remains they had found.156 During the conference, Bermúdez de Castro also made statements to the media, avoiding the conflict between both research projects, and, without committing himself to the validity of the Orce bone, emphasising the significance of the Orce research project more generally.157 Meanwhile, Gibert also stated that they did not want any ‘competition’ with Atapuerca.158 Yet privately, for Gibert there was some dispute. Before the Conference, Gibert sent a letter to Joan Albaiges i Riera, a Catalan chemist in charge of the Catalan government research Department. Gibert complained to Albaiges that their research projects applications to the Spanish research council were usually refused. The reason of these refusals were, according to Gibert, that reviewers were always the leaders of the Atapuerca team, Arsuaga and Bermúdez de Castro. Gibert also pointed out that when international referees were involved, his team usually got the funding.
Gibert asked Albaiges his help with this situation and announced him the forthcoming Orce Conference.159
Despite Bermúdez de Castro and Gibert’s public remarks, this private confrontation between both Spanish towns for ‘first place’ was made explicit by the Spanish media. Additionally, the Antena 3 television channel’s news programme interviewed some Atapuerca villagers to get their opinion on their ‘competitor’.160 In the same vein, the weekly magazine Tribuna headlined with
‘Spanish palaeontologists fight over the discovery of the First Europeans’, highlighting the opinion of Juan Luis Arsuaga (another of the Atapuerca co-directors) on Orce’s supposed hominid remains:
‘they belong to animals, not to men’.161 Arsuaga compared the Orce remains with UFOs, stating that
‘a valid one never appears’ and adding that the Orce remains that he had been able to examine
‘constitute a genuine X-Files case’.162 The journalists then noted that Gibert ‘has been taken as a crazy genius by the international scientific community.’163 In El Periódico, Eudald Carbonell, the
154 ‘Científicos que participan en un congreso internacional sobre los hallazgos en Orce aseguran que los restos del homínido encontrado en la localidad granadina son un millón de años más antiguos que los localizados en Atapuerca (Burgos).’ Redacción, La Vanguardia 1995.
155 Carbonell et al. 1995 and De León-Sotelo, ABC 1995a.
156 OCVR 1995.
157 For instance, Moran, El Ideal de Granada 1995.
158 De León-Sotelo, ABC 1995a.
159 AJG-ICP: Letter from Gibert to Joan Albaiges, 12 January 1995.
160 Antena 3 1995.
161 ‘Paleontólogos españoles se disputan el hallazgo del primer europeo’, ‘pertenecen a animales, no a hombres’, Cohnen and Gómez 1995.
162 ‘nunca llega a aparecer uno en condiciones’, ‘los restos de Orce que he tenido la oportunidad de ver constituyen un genuino “Expediente X”, afirma Arsuaga.’ Ibid.
163 ‘Gibert, que ha sido tomado como un genio loco por los santones de la comunidad científica internacional’, Ibid.
third member of the Atapuerca triumvirate, urged caution when assessing the Orce remains, stating that the important thing is for discoveries ‘to be accepted by the international scientific community.’
For this, he continued, research must be published in journals with a high impact factor, like the Atapuerca team had done in Science, Nature, the Journal of Archaeological Science, the Journal of Human Evolution, etc. To top it all off, Carbonell finished his opinion piece encouraging ‘all the teams in our country to use this strategy’, in a clear message to the Orce research team.164 A month after the conference, El País published statements on the Orce bone by Bermúdez de Castro and Carbonell. For Carbonell, the research carried out in Orce did not follow ‘the international standards of scientific rigour’, and for Bermúdez de Castro, who attended the conference, ‘according to the fossils displayed, there is no Orce Man.’165
During the conference, the media presented the Orce research as at least as important as the Atapuerca project, or perhaps even more important. To counteract this, the Atapuerca research team (which had successfully used the media to achieve their aims throughout their work) again performed a clear example of the expulsion version of ‘boundary-work’.166 In public, Arsuaga, Carbonell, and Bermúdez de Castro wanted to show that the only ‘serious’ palaeoanthropological research being conducted was in Atapuerca, and that the research in Orce was not rigorous or was even just an ‘X-File’. As Gieryn states: ‘to exclude an impostor “scientist” will focus attention on the poser’s failure to conform to the expected method of logical or ethical standards variously mapped out as necessary for genuine scientific practice.’167 Again, the Atapuerca researchers wanted to draw a line between themselves and Gibert. Also according to Gieryn, ‘boundary work is a strategic practical action’ that scientists use ‘to secure academic respectability’, among other things.168 The Orce-Atapuerca case was thus a ‘fight’ over respectability in scientific research. A
‘fight’ for the ‘niche’ position as the most prestigious and well-known Spanish palaeoanthropologist, for which, after the conference, Gibert was seriously applying. Carbonell and Arsuaga’s statements show their desire to exclude Gibert from this possibility by labelling him as unscientific in another step in the ‘construction’ of Gibert’s isolation.
To sum up, the Atapuerca research team was almost the only publicly dissenting voice in the media during the conference. The media was in general very supportive of Gibert’s claims and often quoted international scientists to support them. It seemed that Gibert’s strategies and ‘tools’ had
164 ‘sean aceptados por la comunidad científica internacional’, ‘a todos los equipos de nuestro país a participar en esta estrategia’, Carbonell, El Periódico 1995.
165 ‘A partir de los fósiles presentados, el hombre de Orce no existe’, Rivera, El País 1995.
166 For an exhaustive account of the Atapuerca research project’s history see Hochadel 2013b. For a first example of boundary-work see section 2.5 of this thesis.
167 Gieryn 1999, 22.
168 Gieryn 1999, 23.
worked well as he managed to convince the three intended ‘publics’. As Valderas noted, he won both the public and the political battles. Gibert apparently also won the national and international scientists’ recognition, if not of the Orce Man bone, definitely of the Orce research project as a whole. Gibert seemed to have found what he had (apparently) been looking for: an end to the controversy through a public presentation of the arguments and the interaction between supporters and sceptics.169 As we shall see next, however, some unexpected critics had other ideas on how to express their disagreement.