Philippe Lefevre-Witier Obituary

Abstract

Philippe Lefevre-Witier was born in Reims, France, on November 11, 1934, and died on November 15, 2011. A few years ago, he retired from CNRS in Toulouse but continued teaching Ecology at Toulouse University. After his primary and secondary education in northern France, Philippe received his M.D. degree in Paris in 1963. From 1963 1964, he served as the head of a department of clinical medicine in a hospital in Annaba, Algeria. In 1965, he became the head of the laboratory of physical anthropology in the Institute of Human Sciences at the University of Alger. He returned to France in 1968 as a Research Fellow (research on genetic polymorphisms of the blood) in the Center of Hemotypology at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Toulouse. In 1977 he became Maitre de Recherches (equivalent to assistant professor), followed by a promotion to Directeur de Recherches (Professor) in 1982. Philippe Lefevre-Witier conducted a series of long-term, inter-disciplinary field investigations on four different continents: Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe. From 1976 to 1987 he studied human adaptation, development, and ecology in the Algerian Sahara (in Hoggar and Tassili n’Ajjer). He also focused on Tuareg populations of Niger and Mali. He investigated the genetics and population dynamics in the village of Ideles in the Hoggar region of North Africa, and published a highly acclaimed volume on the Isseqqamaren genetic structure. Lefevre-Witier organized and conducted a joint research project with UNAM on an assortment of biocultural studies involving DNA analyses, serology, and parasitology (1983 1988) in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, with the Mixteca Alta. He led field investigations on the hemotypology of Nepalese populations and Tibetan refugees in the Takhola Valley of Nepal. His research experience in Europe was limited to the population of the Capcir plateau in the French of eastern Pyrenees. He traced the contemporary gene pool through genealogies back to 1740. The dominant themes that appear throughout his research included bio-cultural adaptation, ecology, disease, and genetic markers. I first met Philippe during the International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Chicago in 1974. I had contracted a particularly virulent form of the flu, and during most of the Congress was confined to my bed at the hotel. However, on learning about my condition, Philippe was extremely kind, and he organized visits by groups of colleagues bearing good cheer and appropriate libations. In 1979, when James Mielke and I organized a seminar