The most Important Site in the World Insofar as volume, quality and variety of Hominid Fossils Found

At the Gran Dolina site, numerous remains have been found of the first hominid inhabitant of the Iberian Peninsula, Homo antecessor, dating back some 1,000,000 years.

At another level of the same site and at the nearby Sima de los Huesos (the Pit of Bones), some 400,000 years ago another forebear, the so-called Homo heidelbergensis, carried out everyday activities, such as dressing game, or symbolic activities, such as the oldest ritual burials known.

Jaw of about 1,2 milions years old found in Atapuerca that advances in 400.000 years the hominin presence in Europe.

Our species, Homo sapiens, reached this area only 6,000 years ago in search of good agricultural and grazing lands. It settled here and has not left the Atapuerca region nor ceased to practice this form of subsistence since then.