The controversy regarding Tertiary Man and its expression in Valencia (Spain) during the early 20th century

Abstract

Postulates on the tertiary age of humanity by some late-19^th century evolutionists gave rise to heated controversy among naturalists, biologists and physicians. In Spain, the diatribes between supporters and detractors must be located within the general context of the evolutionary subject in a country, that was deeply polarized by ideological impregnations. Spanish debate was specially motivated by the arrival in Valencia of a human skeleton fossil in 1889. This specimen, collected in Argentina, showed some peculiar traits that were classified as primitive and dating from the Tertiary time period. During the early decades of 20^th century, a series of papers about that skeleton were published and the controversy was reactivated. On one side, we find Eduardo Boscá, natural history professor in the University of Valencia, as a partisan of Tertiary age; on the other, the physician Faustino Barberá and some Jesuit scientists. Scientific data and ideological and religious arguments were combined in the defence of each confronted view.