Atapuerca, Burgos

Atapuerca is a municipality and a town in the Spanish Camino de Santiago in the province of Burgos, autonomous community of Castile -Leon.

Before Atapuerca exists a fin del rey - End of the king called Markstein. This stone remembers - like a stone tablet in Agés - to the death of King García III. in the year 1054. He died after his defeat and his brother Ferdinand I, King of Castile and León hand, in the context of disputes over common border areas. Next there is the parish church in the village of San Martín.

Archaeological finds

→ Main article: Sierra de Atapuerca

Became internationally known Atapuerca after there since 1994 in several karst caves hundreds of fossil bones were found that could be assigned to the genus Homo and their age is partly 800,000 years. The Spanish excavation director defined on the basis of this hominin species Homo antecessor finds the new and had it at the same time as a direct ancestor of the Neanderthals. This demarcation of the Spanish discoveries of similar ancient African and European findings is controversial; many other researchers assign the older finds Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis younger. Since 2000 Atapuerca is because of these sites on the list of world cultural heritage.