Beacon Professor Lecture by Professor Clive Finlayson: The Gibraltar Climate Bubble – A Three-Million-Year-Old Legacy

Professor Clive Finlayson is the Director of the Gibraltar National Museum and of the Gorham’s Cave Complex UNESCO World Heritage Site. He holds a First-Class Honours degree in Zoology from the University of Liverpool, a DPhil from the University of Oxford, and an MSc in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester. He was elected a Member of the Academia Europaea in 2010. Prof Finlayson is also a Beacon Professor at the University of Gibraltar, and a Visiting Professor at Liverpool John Moores University. He has worked as a consultant for the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris. A biologist by training, his research work focuses on the evolutionary ecology and biogeography of vertebrates, including humans. His interests also include the protohistory and medieval history of Gibraltar and the Strait, Gibraltar’s urban archaeology, and, more widely, palaeoclimatology and palaeoecology, reflecting his wider identity as a naturalist with a broad interdisciplinary outlook. Prof Finlayson has published extensively, including numerous peer-reviewed papers and articles, as well as eight authored and three co-authored books with major publishers such as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Bloomsbury. He was awarded an MBE in HM The Queen’s New Year Honours in 2003, and in 2019 received the Gibraltar Medallion of Distinction from the Gibraltar Parliament for Public Service, specifically for his work on Gorham’s Cave. Most recently he was awarded the William King Medal “for exceptional contribution to the history and understanding of human evolution.”