José María Bermúdez de Castro, Honorary Researcher at CENIEH and member of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), will deliver the lecture "The Names of European Prehistory" on Wednesday, 16 September, at 6:30 p.m. in the Conference Hall of Fórum Evolución Burgos. The lecture will open the 16th Annual Meeting of the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution (ESHE), one of the leading international events devoted to the study of human evolution.

The opening event will begin with a presentation of the conference by María Martinón-Torres, Director of the National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH); Katerina Harvati, President of ESHE; and Cristina Ayala Santamaría, Mayor of Burgos, who supported this international meeting from the outset. The conference will bring together around 400 specialists in human evolution from across the world.

In his lecture, Bermúdez de Castro will retrace the scientific adventure that began with the discovery of the first human fossils in Europe and gradually transformed our understanding of human origins. Gibraltar, Neander, Altamira, Piltdown, Mauer and Atapuerca will provide the thread linking a story of discoveries, debates, mistakes and even frauds that shaped the history of prehistoric research. Behind each discovery are scientists, explorers and scholars —some famous, others almost forgotten— whose questions, insights and errors all helped to build what we know today about human evolution.

Thanks to the support of Burgos City Council and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), under the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the lecture will be open to the public, with free admission until full capacity is reached. It will feature simultaneous interpretation into English and Spanish Sign Language interpreting. The event will also be streamed live on CENIEH’s YouTube channel.