World-renowned discoverer of a large number of famous human fossils, including Lucy, Yves Coppens is a paleontologist, honorary professor at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, and at the Collège de France, a member of the Académie des sciences and of the Académie de médecine. His notable publications include Pré-ambules; Le Genou de Lucy; L’Histoire de l’homme; Yves Coppens raconte l’homme and Pré-textes. His most recent publications are the best-selling Pré-ludes and Des pastilles de préhistoire.
Here are the long-awaited memoirs of Yves Coppens, a world-renowned scholar, paleontologist of international stature, but also a writer beloved by the general public for his eloquence and simplicity of style.

How, then, did Yves Coppens become what he is today? How did he contract what he calls “archeologitis,” that is, an attraction to what came before, to the people of before, but also to the “elsewhere,” the people of “elsewhere.”

What personalities might he have encountered throughout a life dominated by a need to understand the origins of human beings?

How did he contribute decisively to the advancement of that discipline, prehistory, which he loved madly and to which he has contributed so much?

And how is it possible to maintain, intact, for more than fifty years, such a passion for the life of the first humans, as well as such a furious desire to tell everyone, in the simple and precise language of a devotee, that history which is nothing less than that of our ancestors?