On a blistery and cold October Saturday, we woke up early and headed north of Madrid to a small town we passed through along the Camino de Santiago called Atapuerca. At first glance, there wasn't much to the town. We found a small cafe, albergue, and about fifty or so houses of locals living in a small enclave 20 km from Burgos. Upon closer inspection, what we found just outside the town was one of the newest finds in the search for the ancient peoples of Europe and Atapuerca has some of the oldest. In the 19th century, a mining company punched holes in the earth to lay track to move minerals. The company went bust a few years later and left the track. Fast forward to the 1970's and a graduate student looking to work on a dissertation and we find the name Trinidad de Torres, the most overlooked person in the story of remains on the Sierra de Atapuerca. He sacrificed a summer and endured agonizing heat to go in search of bear skeletons for his project. What he found were human remains and artifacts that dated back 800,000 years, much older than anything found before.
His mentor, the famous Emiliano Aguirre, helped to bring in a team in the early 80's and start excavations to uncover more remains. There has been a treasure trove of things including the species
Homo antecessor. The
foundation set up at the site offers a daily tour of a small camp that imitates how they believed the people of the area lived. They also offer a tour of the excavation sites. We found out the hard way while hiking the Camino that we couldn't just show up and go along. We made a reservation and had a guide take us through the camp.
She took us through various stations to show us how they made weapons, sharpened weapons, and painted the animals they killed on walls.
They had buildings set up to imitate smoke houses and housing for the people. We were allowed to walk up to them but not inside.
Here is a depiction of how they believed they buried their dead based on grave sites found.
There were some interactive parts of the tour. The first one was the use of a boomerang shaped object attached to a cord. If you've ever seen Crocodile Dundee II, you would recognize the apparatus. It was an instrument used for communication by swinging it on the cord. As it cut through the air, it made a buzzing sound that increased and decreased with speed. The tour guide let some of the people try it out. Pictured below, this guy tried to throw the javelins they made for hunting. He would have gone hungry. Another guy was allowed to try the bow and arrow.
In the tent we could enter, the girl showed us how they made fire with flints. Definitely one of the best tour guides we've ever had.
After the hour tour of the small campsite, we packed into the bus and headed to the excavation site. The guy explained what they were finding, where they found important pieces, and how the project continued to unearth new treasures.
That part of the tour wasn't as exciting as we'd expected because we couldn't see much beyond a bunch of scaffolding and digging tools. The public wasn't allowed to get close to the more important places where they were digging.
After we finished our tour, we stopped into a small cafe near the site and had some lunch before heading on back to Madrid. We had a great day and finally got to visit the site we tried to see when we were hiking the Camino de Santiago. This is a must see for anyone who loves archaeological sites.
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