Archaeological site of Atapuerca

The archaeological site of Atapuerca is located in the province of Burgos in the north of Spain and is notable for its evidence of early human occupation.It was designated a World Heritage Site in 2000.The archaeological significance of this part of the province of Burgos became increasingly apparent in the 20th century as the result of the construction of a metre-gauge railway through the Atapuerca Mountains. Deep cuttings were made through the karst geology exposing rocks and sediments of features known as Gran Dolina, Galería Elefante and Sima de los Huesos. The subsequent excavation of 1964 under the direction of Francisco Jordá Cerdá succeeded with the discovery of anthropogenic artifacts and human fossils from a broad time range . Further excavations followed, and interdisciplinary work has been undertaken by several teams, led by Emiliano Aguirre from 1978 to 1990 and later jointly by Eudald Carbonell, José María Bermúdez de Castro and Juan Luis Arsuaga. These have confirmed the continuous human occupation of the site. In July 2020 two quartzite stones were discovered, dating to 600,000 years ago, a find which filled in a gap in the evidence for human occupation of the site over a timeline of 1,200,000 years.

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