#atapuerca

Homo Antecessor: remains of over eighty fossils representing at least six individuals and including skeletal and cranial remains were found at Gran Dolina in Atapuerca in Spain, between 1994-1996.

camino frances / atapuerca

Burgos, 18.04.2024

HM Queen Sofía visited the Archaeological Site of Atapuerca.

Day 11: Belorado – Atapuerca

Camino de Santiago

Moleskine

Pencil on Paper

2021

By Marta Melis

Centro de Turismo Rural, Atapuerca, Burgos, 2011.

Álamos en Atapuerca, Burgos

Day 9: Archaeological Site of Atapuerca, World Heritage Cultural Site

07/26/2016

The Archaeological Site of Atapuerca was found during the construction of a railway cut through several ancient caves in 1910. Scientific excavation began in 1964 and has found bones of early hominin species, Bronze Age humans, modern humans, stone artifacts, and several prehistoric animals. 

Sima del Elefante

The Sima del Elefante is a major cave infill with a stratigraphic succession that is 25 m long and 15 m wide. It is contain a rich amount of animal bones and displays evidence of different human occupation periods throughout the Pleistocene. Three infill phases have been identified being defined by unconformities. A possible explanation for these unconformities would be collapse of cave floor (? I remember the guide saying that but I forgot to write it down). My picture mainly shows the lower phase, which has been date to the Early Pleistocene (1.1-1.4 million years ago). 

I was going to typing down all the animals but I found this lovely paper that had a table:

There were A LOT...

Galería

In the 1970s, a fragment of jaw was recovered in the Galería cave and a fragment of skull in 1995, both belonging to Homo heidelbergensis, dating to 600,000 to 400,000 years ago. There are many remains of animals, including a lion, as well as plants and tools dating from about 400,000 years ago.

Galería was used by Homo heidelbergensis as a natural trap. Animals were pushed into it, and “were torn apart” and eaten. Scavenging animals went in after the humans had left. Homo heidelbergensis used cut-stone instruments with even, sharpened edges and that had been chipped over the entire surface. They had eaten deer, horses, and large bovines.

Gran Dolina

If you follow layer and the dash line on the poster, You can see small little white bones. This is a marker of early human campsites.

Bone

TD-11: Mousterian tools have been found.

TD-10: could have been a camp of Homo heidelbergensis, with tools and bison remains.

TD-8: reached by the first time in 1994, has provided magnificent carnivores.

In level TD-7: a leg of a bovid (like a mouflon) in anatomical position was recovered in 1994.

TD-6 : In 1994 and 1995, archaeologists found over 80 bone fragments from five or six hominids dating to between 850,000 and 780,000 years ago. About 25% of the human remains found here showed the first evidence of cannibalism. These finds are at least 250,000 years older than any other hominid yet discovered in western Europe. It is still debated which species these fossils belong to, either Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis or a newly discovered species called Homo antecessor. Some paleoanthropologists who have studied the findings at Gran Dolina argue that Homo antecessor may have given rise to Homo heidelbergensis, who eventually gave rise to Neandertals. The erectus-like fossils were also found with retouched flake and core stone tools.

TD-5: could have been a den of carnivores.

TD-4 (dated to 780,000 BCE), during the 1991 excavation, four lithic pieces were found. Also, it retains a dozen remnants of Ursus dolinensis, a new species of bear.

At the lower levels (TD-1 and TD-2), there are no fossils.

New Cave Discovered 

There were some sites that they could show us because they were in the process of digging out an important unit. They did show us a new/extension cave entrance.

For those you need a view guide to human evolution:

Source 

Also check out this video by the Archaeological Site of Atapuerca