Aretz et al_2011.pdf - ORBi - Université de Liège

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Kölner Forum Geol. Paläont., 19 (2011)
M. ARETZ, S. DELCULÉE, J. DENAYER & E. POTY (Eds.)
Abstracts, 11th Symposium on Fossil Cnidaria and Sponges, Liège, August 19-29, 2011
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dr. James ALLOITEAU 1890-1969
Ewa RONIEWICZ 1 & Elżbieta MORYCOWA 2
1 Institute of Paleobiology, Twarda 51/55, 00-818 Warszawa, Poland; eron@twarda.pan.pl;
2 Institute of Geological Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Oleandry 2a, 30-063 Krakow, Poland;
elzbieta.moryc@ing.uj.edu.pl
James ALLOITEAU was an initiator of coral studies at the Sorbonne in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, he
continued the investigations in the Laboratoire de Paléontologie du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
in Paris and formed a special team of paleontological specialists which became during approximately 30
years “the French school of Corals”.
James Henri Ernest ALLOITEAU was born in Chartres on April the 20 th , 1890 in the family of a gardener,
died on February the 11 th 1969. The early years of childhood he spent in a small village, Lève, where he
began his formal education. In Illiers he attended École primaire supérieur, and in Chartres he graduated
from the École normale in 1911, and began to work as a teacher in the village Eure-et-Loir. He began
studies in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris, but this was interrupted by the First World War.
After the war he continued teaching in a country school, and started studies at the Sorbonne, and in 1926 he
obtained a diploma in geology. While working as a teacher, he maintained his contact with the Laboratory
of Geology at the Sorbonne. In 1939 he started his paleontological researches in the Centre National de
Recherches Scientifiques. During the Second World War he joined the underground movement, La
Resistance, was arrested in 1943, and then suspended from his position. After the war he returned to his
researches at the Sorbonne, and due to an upsurge of geological investigations involved in postwar
industrial development, he could obtain and collected himself large numbers of Mesozoic corals, and began
intensive research on this material.
In 1952, he presented his systematics of the scleractinians in the Traité de Paléontologie edited by
J. PIVETEAU, predominantly based on the septal microstructure and its external expression, septal
micromorphology (ornamentation). His proposed scheme of coral systematics has, in a great part, survived
to the present despite more than a half of century of research by many since its publication. He defended
his doctorat thesis in 1955, and in 1957 published his book “Contribution à la systématique des
Madréporaires fossiles”.
In the Sorbonne Laboratoire de Paléontologie, in the 1950s, J. ALLOITEAU recruited young
palaeontologist; Jean–Pierre CHEVALIER worked with Caenozoic scleractinians, Marcel and Louise
BEAUVAIS with Cretaceous and Jurassic corals, and in the Paleozoic corals, Jean LAFUSTE studied tabulates
while Pierre SEMENOFF-TIAN-CHANSKY the rugosans. Except the two BEAUVAIS who joined the University at
Jussieu, most of the members of this first team moved to the MNHN. Under ALLOITEAU’S guidance, Jean-
Pierre CUIF completed his thesis for the Doctorate of the State, on Triassic Scleractinia, becoming professor
in Orsay, Sylvie BARTA-CALMUS (in Jussieu; then in MNHN) completed her thesis on Tertiary corals. For
stages as resident scientists, young coral workers came from abroad; these were Gabriel GILL from Israël
who came to study Jurassic corals, then took a permanent position in CRNS, Elżbieta MORYCOWA and Ewa
RONIEWICZ came from Poland to study Cretaceous and Jurassic corals. Thanks to a very friendly
atmosphere created by M. ALLOITEAU and his secretary, Mme. Josélianne MARÉCHAL, members of this coral
team maintained personal contacts with numerous geographic areas. This policy was pursued by his
disciples. Thus, Vassil ZLATARSKY from Bulgaria worked with J.P. CHEVALIER, Suzana MORSCH from
Argentine with L. BEAUVAIS, Francis TOURNEUR from Belgium with J. LAFUSTE and Markus ARETZ from
Germany with J. P. SEMENOFF-TIAN-CHANSKY.
All the members of the “French Coral Group” use microstructure as a practical criterion of suprageneric
taxa. The results obtained by the Alloiteau team as a group, have contributed greatly to the advancement of
understanding of scleractinians. It is satisfying that molecular results confirm those obtained by
microstructural studies: a good example is given by the results obtained by J.P. CHEVALIER or by the recent
coral studies carried out by J-P. CUIF and his colleagues, comparing microstructures with molecular
methods.
149