Atapuerca: Uncovering Human Evolution in Spain
Railway trench. Earlier
twentieth century a railroad was built
mining through the Sierra de Atapuerca
resulting in a long, deep trench
excavated in the rock. Workers involved
cutting limestone encountered
areas of red clay, soil-filled caves
ideal for long conservation
of fossils.
1988 Each summer a team of
Archaeologists and paleontologists are busy decoding
an important chapter in our history.
Gallery
In 1976, a human fossil found
in a nearby cave, which led to paleoanthropologist
Emiliano Aguirre to organize a systematic excavation.
In this site
Gallery humans left their
tracks for over two hundred thousand years. Each layer
succession corresponds to a specific time, there are 13
different times with human activity in the Gallery.
Gallery acted as a natural trap, a hole in the
ground of the mountain where the animals fell and died. Our
ancestors came from time to time to tear and
eat horses, deer and bison whose bones have marks
made by stone tools. Some carnivores like
wolves and lions attracted by the carrion also fell into this
trap. For four thousand years to do something
less than two hundred thousand human beings came into Gallery
to cut up the bodies of dead animals. 1992
Hundreds of stone tools and animal fossils have
appeared on this site. Instruments manufacturing
Special hunting for domestic use, such as double-sided.
Archaeologists study that were manufactured and used as
these tools. The electron microscope can see a
wear characteristic indicates that the piece was used to
scraping wood. The tools are plentiful, and songs made silex
sandstone and quartzite, which they brought here from the nearby river
Almanzor. Some were used as knives, punches and had
scrapers, each made differently. Their shapes
were prepared and very thoughtful, were designed to meet
specific functions.
Sima de los Huesos
One of the most important sites
found in Cueva Mayor. The Sima de los Huesos site is a
very special, it is necessary to excavate a complex organization,
be in good physical shape and use of caving equipment.
Each day, to reach the Sima de los Huesos located fifty
four meters deep, there are half a mile to go
cave. To access it you have to descend a vertical pit
fourteen meters deep. For centuries the people of this area
visited this cave damaging the field for souvenirs. After
years of hard work was located in the area of undisturbed sediment.
Analyzing the tons of sediment stirred appeared hundreds of
human fossils. What they could not imagine when paleontologists
discovered its first front is what awaited them four years later.
1992 saw the most incredible accumulation of human fossils, bones
arms and legs, hands, feet, vertebrae and jaws, and between all
those remains were two very complete skulls. Such was the density
bones that the team took a month to dig that little
space of a quarter meter square.
Skull-5 managed to put the pieces of a skull would be the most complete
and best-preserved fossil record worldwide. Since that ancient
cave entrance was closed, the Sima de los Huesos has maintained its
constant conditions. Human remains were preserved to perfection
in the case of clay skull-4 but slows down the work extremely fragile.
With over three hundred thousand years, the chasm to understand the
human evolution in Europe. These skulls were the culmination of ten years
of hard work.
Gran Dolina
The first deposit to be excavated was the so-called Great
1988 Dolina levels Dolina younger are of the same age
Gallery although here human beings do not eat animals but
made tools, was his workshop. A curious mix of wildlife
African and European shared this territory with humans. With
sixty feet stuffed rich in fossils, this site is providing
valuable information about the changes that occurred in the climate during the
last million years, how these climate changes affected plant
and the evolution of animals and how humans exploited the
environmental resources. In 1994 appeared very primitive stone tools
with animal fossils, which nobody expected to find were teeth
human. The teeth of the TD6 level of Gran Dolina have features very
primitives belonging to a link between very primitive African hominids
and Middle Pleistocene populations which belong to hominids
the Sima de los Huesos. With the help of a rodent called Mimomys savini
who lived a few hundred thousand years and paleomagnetic dating is
could determine the age of fossils around eight hundred thousand years
had never before appeared in European human fossils of this age,
There are remains of at least six different people, including a young man about
thirteen. They are the first Europeans known and have been assigned to a
new hominid species called Homo antecessor.
roofed in 1995
the site to protect it from erosion and expanded the area of excavation.
Atapuerca is one of the human fossil sites in the world,
after many years of work, the tenacity of a team of scientists is
beginning to unravel the secrets of a little known period of evolution
human, but still a long way to go.