According to José María Bermúdez de Castro, co-director of research at an archeological site in Atapuerca in June 2007, findings have uncovered "anatomical evidence of the hominids that fabricated tools more than one million years ago": first, a tooth [1] and then a fragment of jawbone, [2] which may be the earliest European hominid.
The excavation of several sites in the late 20th century has found human remains from a wide range of ages ranging from early humans (either Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, or a more recently-identified species called Homo antecessor) to the Bronze Age and the modern man. 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 (50 foot) deep chimney reached by scrambling through the cave system of the Cueva Mayor. The fossils there have a minimum age of 350,000 years old, corresponding to the Middle Pleistocene. The "Sima de los huesos" contains abundant human remains representing around 30 skeletons of the species Homo heidelbergensis, a direct ancestor of the Neanderthals.[3]
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.
Geography
The Bureba Pass joins the interior of the Iberian peninsula and the way to Europe. It connects the Mediterranean Ebro valley and the Atlantic Duero valley. As such, it was part of the Roman causeway and the Way of Saint James and now of the N-I and AP-1 highways.
