Gonzalo Correal Urrego (Gachalá, Colombia, 23 October 1939) is a Colombian anthropologist, palaeontologist and archaeologist. He has been contributing to the knowledge of prehistoric Colombia for over forty years and has published in Spanish and English. Correal Urrego is considered one of the most important anthropologists of Colombia. He has collaborated with many other anthropologists and archaeologists, among others Thomas van der Hammen and Ana María Groot.
Biography.
Gonzalo Correal Urrego was born in the village of Gachalá, in the eastern part of the Colombian department of Cundinamarca. Already as a child he did his first archaeological excavations in the "Cuevas de los Alpes" in his home village. He attended the "Colegio de San Bartolomé La Merced", graduating in 1958. Correal went on to study anthropology and law and political sciences simultaneously at the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia and Universidad Libre respectively. In 1964 he obtained his degree in anthropology and in 1966 his PhD in law and political sciences.
As of 1966 he was a professor at the Universidad de Antioquia and between 1968 and 1971 at the Department of Anthropology of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. From 1975 to 1995 Correal Urrego was professor in anthropology and archaeology at the Universidad Nacional.
Correal Urrego has investigated the preceramic period in Colombia (El Abra, Tequendama, Aguazuque, Tibitó, among others) and contributed to the knowledge of the Herrera Period, Muisca, Panches, Quimbaya and more. He also analysed the Pleistocene megafauna that still existed at the time of the first human populations in South America. Among those the mastodont of Zarzal.
Correal Urrego has been awarded various awards for his contributions in the fields of archaeology and anthropology, among others "Primer Premio Nacional de Antropología y Arqueología" in 1975, "Profesor Emérito, Universidad Nacional de Colombia" in 1983, "Maestro Universitario, Universidad Nacional de Colombia" in 1994, "Profesor Honorario, Universidad Nacional de Colombia" in 1995.
In 2007 Correal Urrego received recognition for his forty-year career at the Universidad Nacional with the "Vida y Obra" award. In 2015 the Universidad del Magdalena of Santa Marta awarded Correal the "Medalla de Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta" and in the same year the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia honoured Correal Urrego for his work.
Works.
This list is a selection.
References.
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