| Archaeological Site of Atapuerca * | |
|---|---|
| Country | Spain |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | iii, v |
| Reference | 989 |
| Region ** | Europe and North America |
| Inscription history | |
| Inscription | 2000 (24th Session) |
| * Name as inscribed on World Heritage List ** Region as classified by UNESCO |
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The Atapuerca Mountains (Sierra de Atapuerca in Spanish) is an ancient karstic region of Spain, in the province of Burgos and near Atapuerca and Ibeas de Juarros. It contains several caves, where fossils and stone tools of the earliest known Hominins in West Europe have been found. The earliest hominids may have dated to 1.2 million years ago, representing the first in Europe. "The Archeological Site of Atapuerca" has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Bureba Pass joins the interior of the Iberian peninsula to France. It connects the Ebro river valley leading to the Mediterranean Sea, and the Duero valley leading to the river's outlet at the Atlantic Ocean. As such, the pass was part of the Roman causeway and the pilgrimage Way of Saint James. It is now traversed by the N-I and AP-1 highways.
The sites in this area were found during the construction of railway cuts through Gran Dolina, Galería and Elefante, and in the cave of Sima de los Huesos. The scientific excavation, started by Francisco Jordá Cerdá in 1964, has found human remains from a wide range of ages: early humans to the Bronze Age and modern man. Sites in the area have also yielded stone artifacts. It was excavated by a team led by Emiliano Aguirre from 1978 until 1990, and then jointly by Eudald Carbonell, José María Bermúdez de Castro and Juan Luis Arsuaga.
The regional government of Castile and León has designated the site an Espacio cultural. The Zona Arqueológica sierra de Atapuerca is protected under Spanish law as a Bien de Interés Cultural.
Because of its importance, in 2000, the "Archaeological Site of Atapuerca" was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.
In the 20th century, several archaeologists including Jesús Carballo (1910–1911), Geoffrey Clark (1971), José María Apellániz (1973–1983) and the team led by Juan Luis Arsuaga (2000-) recovered ceramic remains from the late Neolithic, Age of Bronze and Lower Roman Empire.
Discovered in 1972 by a local speleology group, there are intact rock paintings in this cave.
A fragment of jaw was recovered in the 1970s, 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.
The site of Gran Dolina is a huge cave with several levels (TD-11 to TD-1), whose excavation began in September 1981:
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 (43-foot) deep chimney reached by scrambling through the cave system of the Cueva Mayor.
Beginning in 1997, the excavation team has located more than 5,500 human bones dated to an age of at least 350,000 years old, corresponding to the Middle Pleistocene and representing around 28 skeletons of the species Homo heidelbergensis,[1] together with remains of Ursus deningeri and a biface called Excalibur. It is hypothesized that this Acheulean axe made of red quartzite was some kind of ritual offering for a funeral. Ninety percent of the known Homo heidelbergensis remains have been obtained from this site. The fossil pit bones include:
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.
According to José María Bermúdez de Castro, co-director of research at an archeological site in Atapuerca, findings have uncovered "anatomical evidence of the hominids that fabricated tools more than one million years ago", which may have been the earliest West European hominid. First they discovered a tooth [3] in June 2007 and then, in 2008, a fragment of jawbone,[4] and a proximal phalange.
This site provides information on farmers and ranchers from the Neolithic and Age of Bronze.
Stone tools from the Upper Paleolithic have been obtained from these areas.
An open-air settlement.
Atapuerca is the location of the battle of Atapuerca (1054) between the troops of Ferdinand I of Castile and his brother García V of Navarre.
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