30 years of digs

The first 12 difficult years of work were under the leadership of Emiliano Aguirre. During this time, as we began to familiarise ourselves with the sites in these hills, important decisions were made on which ones to be dug, the pace of work and the establishment of a young multidisciplinary team which eventually became the solid foundations of our present research.

In this period, the rubble piled up at the foot of the Gran Dolina and Galería Dolina sites was cleared away and digging began in Sima de los Huesos. While one team cleared and prepared the Sima for excavation work, others erected a scaffolding for Gran Dolina. A team of young scientists arrived at Atapuerca with the dream of beginning their solid immersion in the world of archaeology, but instead found themselves forced to do arduous preparatory work for several years. These twelve years did, however, bear scientific fruit. Although the field work was extremely hard, the laboratory, research and interpretation activities were never subordinated.

They examined the surrounding land, discovered that the raw materials used by the early settlers to produce their tools were from areas very close to the digging sites, and a new analysis system was used to classify these tools. By the end of the 1980’s, the infrastructure was in place, the work was clearly defined and the team was formed.