Gran Dolina

This is the third site in the Railway Cutting which actually slices through it, like Sima del Elefante and Galería. Dolina has a 16m deep stratigraphic sequence, divided into 11 levels running from TD1, the oldest level at the base, up to the most recent, TD11 (levels in PDF format). Exploration of a few square metres of TD11 in the 1980’s yielded evidence of industry and fauna. In 1992, a larger 100m area was prepared in the hope that more information would be discovered about the different occupations. Levels TD 1 to TD 7 are from the Early Pleistocene (1,000,000 to 780,000 BP), while TD8 to TD11 are from the Middle Pleistocene (780,000 to 120,000 BP).

In 1990 and 1991, urgent work was done on Level TD4 due to the risk of its collapse and the loss of any information it might contain. Astonishingly, fauna remains and stone industry dating from 900,000 years ago were discovered at this level. This was the first evidence that the Iberian Peninsula had been inhabited so long ago. It was decided to dig 6 metres down from TD11 to TD3, which concluded in 1999. We now know something about what lies in store at every level of this cave, which has already yielded many surprises.