Finlaysons deliver opening keynote at Granada University Workshop as busy year for museum team comes to a successful conclusion

Professors Geraldine and Clive Finlayson were invited to deliver the opening keynote lecture at a workshop organized by the University of Granada, within the Granada UNESCO Geopark, last week. Their paper – Putting the Ecology in Palaeoecology. The Case of the Mediterranean Neanderthals gave an overview of their research in Gibraltar and its global application. The meeting was attended by scientists from Spain and other European countries. The lecture came at the end of a very busy second half of the year for the Gibraltar National Museum team.

The summer months were dedicated to the continuation of excavations at Gorham’s and Vanguard Caves with students from Liverpool John Moores University forming a team that also included local volunteers, led by the Gibraltar National Museum. Work continued in parallel at the Moorish Castle, with museum archaeologist Stephanie Kassam being kept busy with new discoveries at this site. The enormous task of recovering Gibraltar’s most important man-made heritage icon has kept the team fully occupied for over a year now, with Clive and Geraldine, alongside Government Archaeologist Dominic Lopez, giving the Board of the Gibraltar Heritage Trust a detailed tour of the site literally hours prior to their departure for the Granada workshop.

The work of the museum has been highlighted in different ways. Several documentaries, featuring major international channels, involved the team who emphasized Gibraltar’s unique heritage in its many facets, from the Neanderthals and our caves, through the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians, to the conquest of Al-Andalus and the origins and development of our medieval city, this latter for French national television. The Neanderthal work was featured in scientific publications, with an important paper published in July in the journal Scientific Reports of the Nature group. A popular science article in the Spanish Magazine Muy Interesante has now been published as a chapter in a new book - Neandertales. La historia de una estirpe perdida – which followed from the success of the article.

The museum’s work includes a strong educational component, with close liaison with local schools on a range of subjects covering Gibraltar’s history, natural history and heritage. The education programme has been running successfully for over three decades. The Walks through History summer programme, guided by Phil Smith of the museum team, is an additional avenue for getting the message across to young people. The many subjects covered by the museum’s education programme carry a strong conservation message, bats having been the focus of a recent series of presentations by Tyson L. Holmes who is a senior member and researcher of the museum team.

Bats feature prominently in the work of our Natural History Department, led by Dr Stewart Finlayson. In October, field sessions in Spain were aimed at further elucidating the movements of Gibraltar’s bats with a view to developing an international conservation programme for species that regularly cross borders. In this regard, the recently signed collaboration agreement with the University of Marrakesh in Morocco, aims to expand the study of bats to the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar. The project is going from trans-national to trans-continental.

The latest keynote at the Granada University meeting was the last of a series of lectures given by the museum team. It has been particularly intense in the last quarter of the year, after the successful Calpe Conference in September on Gibraltar during the Second World War. These presentations included Professor Clive Finlayson’s William King Lecture at the University of Galway in Ireland in October when he was presented with the William King Medal “for exceptional contribution to the history and understanding of human evolution.” It was followed by a joint presentation, delivered by Professor Geraldine Finlayson to Bayside students as part of the Literary Festival. This was quickly followed by her Research lecture at the University of Gibraltar, entitled “Echoes in the Earth”.

As we reach the close of the year, there is one more event to go. This will be the Christmas Beacon Professor/Gibraltar National Museum joint lecture to be delivered by Professor Clive Finlayson. The Gibraltar Climate Bubble – a three-million-year-old legacy will explore Gibraltar’s role as a climate refugium in glacial times. It will be delivered on Thursday 18^th December at the University and is open to the public.

The year end also marks the start of an exciting 2026, when the museum will organise a series of events commemorating the centenary of the discovery of the Neanderthal child’s skull at Devil’s Tower Cave. The year also marks the 10th anniversary of the inscription of the Gorham’s Cave Complex as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.