Thomas van der Hammen
Dutch palaeontologist, botanist and geologist (1924–2010)
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Through Bogotá
Biography
Personal life and education
Thomas van der Hammen was born in the city of Schiedam in South Holland, western The Netherlands. He studied botany and palaeontology at Leiden University from 1944 to 1949. He was a deeply religious man.
Career
After his studies and years of research at the University of Amsterdam, van der Hammen arrived in Bogotá in 1951.
Van der Hammen analysed the Bogotá savanna and concluded a great lake (Lake Humboldt) was present there around 60,000 years BP, covering present-day Bogotá, Soacha, Funza, Mosquera, Madrid, Cota, Chía and Cajicá. Van der Hammen has contributed greatly to the understanding of the geology of the Bogotá savanna and surrounding areas. He has worked with Gonzalo Correal Urrego towards an understanding of the prehistoric sites, as El Abra, Tequendama and Tibitó in central Colombia and has defined and described various geological formations, such as the Marichuela, Tunjuelo, and Subachoque Formations. His paleobotanical background proved valuable in dating the continental Cacho Formation.
In 2000, a natural reserve in the north of Bogotá bordering Chía and Cota, Thomas van der Hammen Natural Reserve, was named after the naturalist. The mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, who ran twice for the Green Party, allowed the construction of homes in the reserve, leading to protests by residents.
In 2003, van der Hammen granted a wide-ranging interview to Radio Netherlands about his work and his life.
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Notable works by Van der Hammen
- Morales M., Otero J., Hammen Thomas van der., Torres A., Cadena-Vargas C., Pedraza C., Rodríguez N., Franco C., Betancourth J.C., Olaya E., Posada E. y Cárdenas L. 2007. Atlas de páramos de Colombia. Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt. Bogotá, D. C. 208 p. ISBN 978-958-8151-91-5
- Hammen, Thomas van der; Correal Urrego, Gonzalo (2003), "Supervivencia de mastodontes, megaterios y presencia del hombre en el Valle del Magdalena (Colombia) entre 6000 y 5000 A.P. - Survival of mastodonts, megatheriums and the presence of man in the Magdalena Valley (Colombia) between 6000 and 5000 years BP" (PDF), Rev. Acad. Colomb. Cienc. (in Spanish), 27: 159–164, ISSN 0370-3908, retrieved 8 July 2016
- Hammen, Thomas van der (2003), La conservación de la biodiversidad: hacia una estructura ecológica de soporte de la nación colombiana [The conservation of the biodiversity: towards an ecological structure supported by the Colombian nation] (PDF) (in Spanish), Universidad Nacional de Colombia, pp. 286–291, retrieved 8 July 2016
- Hammen, Thomas van der (1994), Stratigraphic Dating and Cultural Sequences of Pre-Hispanic Northern South America (PDF), The Getty Conservation Institute, pp. 381–393, ISBN 0-89236-249-9, retrieved 8 July 2016
- Hammen, Thomas van der; Cleef, Antoine M. (1983), "Datos para la Historia de la Flora Andina" [Data on the History of the Andean Flora] (PDF), Revista Chilena de Historia Natural (in Spanish), 56: 97–107, retrieved 8 July 2016