Go Niche

SPANIARDS HAVE a lot to be proud of, and not just in relation to the World Cup.

This week the country also celebrated the inauguration of its new Museum of Human Evolution, in the northern city of Burgos.

The museum is a repository of the more than 200 human fossils found during 30 years of excavation in the nearby caves of the Sierra de Atapuerca, the mountain home of Europe’s first hominids. These include one belonging to a 1.3 million-year-old species known as Homo antecessor.

Other Stone Age remains have also been found in the area, including a variety of animal fossils, as well as stone and flint tools. All of these have allowed archeologists to develop a picture of the life of the hominids who lived here in the Pleistocene era.

So rich a resource is it in evolutionary terms that, in 2000, Atapuerca received UNESCO World Heritage classification. It is only the second such site to do so, alongside that of Peking Man in China.

The Museum of Human Evolution, around 260km north of Madrid, houses such star finds as a pelvis called “Elvis”, a Stone Age knife dubbed “Excalibur” and the Homo heidelbergensis skull number five, more commonly known – to archaeologists at least – as “Miguelón”.

Considering the size of the site, much, much more is thought to await discovery.

In the meantime, visitors can content themselves with other displays, including a replica of the Beagle,the ship on which Charles Darwin prepared his theory of evolution; an exhibition dedicated to the human brain; and representations of the development of humankind including settlements, agriculture and cave paintings.

• museoevolucionhumana.com