History of the Atapuerca Complex
At the end of the 19th Century, a trench was dug in preparation for a mining railway to be laid from Sierra de la Demanda (Demanda Mountain Range) to Burgos. This major undertaking resulted in the perforation of the karst complex, revealing the sedimentary fill of the caves containing archeological and paleontological remains.
Though the site was known since the 19th Century, the archeological project began when hominid remains were discovered in 1976. Two years later, Emiliano Aguirre, Chair of Human Paleontology at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, put together an interdisciplinary team of scientists that he directed until his retirement.
Since 1991, the project has been co-directed by E. Carbonell, J.M. Bermúdez de Castro and J.L. Arsuaga, who, among many other professional milestones, received the Príncipe de Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research in 1997.
The tenacity of the research teams and the exemplary integration of several groups working on the project begun by Professor Emiliano Aguirre allow us to assert that we are dealing with the most important archeological / paleontological complex in the world today.
LEFT: Although the mining railroad operated for only a short period of time, the iron rails of the train could still be seen in the Trinchera in 1924. TOP: The quarry workers helped construct the Trinchera which cut through the Sierra de Atapuerca.
The railway trench circa early seventies .
Excavations during the 1978 campaign.