Maurice Taieb
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Maurice Taieb | |
|---|---|
 Taieb in 2020 | |
| Born | 22 July 1935 Bizerte, Tunisia |
| Died | 23 July 2021 (aged 86) Marseille, France |
Maurice Taieb (22 July 1935[1] – 23 July 2021) was a Tunisian French geologist and paleoanthropologist. He discovered the Hadar formation, recognized its potential importance to paleoanthropology and founded the International Afar Research Expedition (IARE). This enabled co-director Donald Johanson to discover an early hominin fossil, the 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecine Lucy in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.
Taieb was born in Tunisia in 1935 to a Tunisian father and a French mother.[2] He travelled through the North African outback with his uncle, a merchant who traded with the Bedouin on the outskirts of Tunis.
Taieb received his doctorate from the University of Paris VI in 1974. His thesis was on the geology of the Awash Riverbasin.
Taieb died on 23 July 2021,[citation needed] and was survived by his wife Ingrid and their two sons, Laurent and Jean Marc.
