Everything about Atapuerca totally explained
Atapuerca is a Spanish town in the
province of Burgos,
Castile-Leon, that gives name to the
Sierra de Atapuerca or
Sierra Atapuerca, an ancient
karstic region of
Spain, containing several caves such as the
Gran Dolina site, where fossils and stone tools of the earliest known
hominids in
Europe have been found. It is excavated by a team led jointly by
Eudald Carbonell,
José María Bermúdez de Castro and
Juan Luis Arsuaga.
Early hominids
According to José María Bermúdez de Castro, co-director of research at an archeological site in Atapuerca in June 2007, findings have uncovered "anatomical evidence of the hominids that fabricated tools more than one million years ago": first, a tooth and then a fragment of jawbone, which may be the earliest European hominid.
The excavation of several sites in the late 20th century has found human remains from a wide range of ages ranging from early humans (either
Homo erectus,
Homo heidelbergensis, or a more recently-identified species called
Homo antecessor) to the
Bronze Age and the modern man.
The most famous site in Atapuerca is the "Sima de los Huesos" (The pit of bones). This site is located at the bottom of a 13 metre (50
foot) deep
chimney reached by scrambling through the cave system of the Cueva Mayor. The fossils there have a minimum age of 350,000 years old, corresponding to the Middle
Pleistocene. The "Sima de los huesos" contains abundant human remains representing around 30 skeletons of the species
Homo heidelbergensis, a direct ancestor of the
Neanderthals.
The excavators suggest that the concentration of bones in the pit may represent the practice of
burial by the inhabitants of the cave. A competing theory cites the lack of small bones in the assemblage and suggests that the remains were washed into the pit by natural agencies.
Geography
The
Bureba Pass joins the interior of the Iberian peninsula and the way to Europe.
It connects the Mediterranean
Ebro valley and the Atlantic
Duero valley.
As such, it was part of the
Roman causeway and the
Way of Saint James and now of the
N-I and
AP-1 highways.
History
Atapuerca is also the location of the
battle of Atapuerca (1054) between the troops of
Ferdinand I of Castile and his brother
García V of Navarre.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Atapuerca'.
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