Miklós Kretzoi

Miklós Kretzoi ( born February 9, 1907 in Budapest, † 15 March 2005) was a Hungarian vertebrate paleontologist and geologist.

Life

Kretzoi grew up in Austria - Hungary, where he also learned Hungarian addition to his native German. He completed his studies at the Pázmány Péter University of Sciences in Budapest, where he was 1929/1930 PhD in the fields of geology, paleontology and geography. From 1926 to 1930 worked Kretzoi at the Hungarian Royal Institute of Geology unpaid as a volunteer until he 1930-1933 joined to geological and cartographic work for flat land and soil science. From 1933 to 1941 he worked as a geologist and geophysicist at kartierender Eurogasco, the later Hungarian -American Oil Industry AG ( Magyar Amerikai Olajipari Rt, short MAORT ) with which he left during the Second World War. In the following years he was employed by the Hungarian National Museum (Magyar Nemzeti Muzeum, short MNM ), where he was until 1946, deputy curator of the collection of Geology and Paleontology, and from 1945 Head of Department and Director of the newly established " collection of Vertebrate Paleontology and comparative osteology ," a items, the Kretzoi held until 1950.

As of March 1, 1950 Kretzoi returned to the State Institute of Geology of Hungary (Magyar Állami Földtani Intézetbe, short MAFI ), where he initially joined geological mapping work in Transdanubia. In 1951 he took over the management of the first and largest vertebrate paleontological collection of Hungary, a post he held until 31 August 1956. From 1956 to 1958 he was director of the MAFI, the Paleontological Department, he headed until 1959. Until 1974 he practiced here also consulting activities for outstanding scientific topics. Kretzoi moved in 1970 to the Kossuth Lajos University in Debrecen, one of the leading universities in the country, and took over until 1974, the Department of Animal and human teaching. Even after his retirement in 1974 he remained until 1986, a research associate of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Research focus

During his creative life Kretzoi participated in numerous scientific projects and described numerous new species. His field of work included small mammals, carnivores, primates, Perissodactyla, Proboscidea and whales, as well as trace fossils and birds, special attention put Kretzoi attention to the predators. Important excavations by Kretzois he -actuated in the 1950s on behalf of the MAFI, found in Villány Mountains, held in Csákvár and Polgárdi. Great importance have continued the studies in Ördöglyuk barlang ( Devil's Hole Cave) at Solymár (north of Budapest) and in Betfia close to Oradea (Romania ), which he led as a university lecturer. Very good but are mainly the excavations in Rudabánya, one of Europe's most fossil deposits from the Miocene epoch, 10 to 12 million years ago, in the body designated by Kretzoi European primate Rudapithecus hungaricus was discovered and the research he presided as scientific director from 1970 to 1978. In 1975 he published the first description of another taxon, Bodvapithecus altiplanus; both Rudapithecus and Bodvapithecus are probably - possibly as male and female variants of the same kind - to the sphere of Dryopithecini.

Furthermore Kretzoi worked together with László Vertes from 1965, the stratigraphic and chronological correlation of the Hungarian vertebrate fauna, some of the results published by Kretzoi 1969, where he made a fine stratigraphic subdivision of the Pliocene and Pleistocene. In addition to the work-ups had Kretzoi important Pleistocene and Paleolithic sites with as Tata (1964 ), Érd (1968) and Vértesszőlős (1964, 1990). Above all, its developed using the fossil mammal inventory of Érd reconstructions for hunting and use of raw materials of early human hunter -gatherer communities gave important impulses for the archaeozoological research. Kretzoi was since 1979 an honorary member of the Hungarian Society of Geography and in 1987 an honorary member of the INQUA.

Awards

Writings (selection )

• Miklós Kretzoi: The predators of the Hipparion fauna of Polgardi. Annales Instituti Geologici Hungarici 40 (3 ), 1952, 5-42
• Miklós Kretzoi: The Significance of the Rudabánya Prehominid Finds in Hominization Research. Acta Biologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 31, 1980, pp. 503-506.
• Miklós Kretzoi, Viola T. Dobosi (ed.): Vértesszőlős. Site, Man and Culture. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1990, ISBN 963-05-4713-9
• Miklós Kretzoi: The fossil hominoids of Rudabánya ( Northeastern Hungary) and early hominization. Magyar Nemzeti Muzeum, Budapest 2002 (2003), ISBN 963-9046-87-6