Definition
Atapuerca, or Sierra de Atapuerca, is a rich archaeological and paleontological site complex located 12 km east of the city of Burgos, in north central Spain (Figure 1). The sites consist of deeply stratified Lower Pleistocene to Holocene archaeo-sedimentary infills of different karstic caves and conduits within a Mesozoic limestone anticline at the boundary between the Tertiary basins of the Duero and Ebro rivers. Among the key sites, Gran Dolina, Galería, and Sima del Elefante (the railway trench sites) have yielded remains of Lower and early Middle Paleolithic occupations by different hominin species (Carbonell et al., 1999; Rosas et al., 2001; Carbonell et al., 2008). Sima de Los Huesos, a small, paleontologically rich gallery at the end of a 14-m deep sinkhole, has yielded a rich accumulation of hominin skeletal remains (Arsuaga et al., 1991, 1993, 1997, 1999). While the bulk of the Atapuerca sites span the Lower and Middle Pleistocene, two sites, El Mirador and...
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Mallol, C. (2017). Atapuerca. In: Gilbert, A.S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geoarchaeology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4409-0_68
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