El Portalón

El Portalón (The Porch) corresponds to the entrance to the Cueva Mayor Complex. It contains occupations from the early Roman Empire, Bronze Age and Eneolithic Age. There is a controversial cave painting on the wall opposite the entrance. This cave, know since ancient times, was dug in 1972 by Arizona University Professor G. A. Clark, who excavated a potential of 2 out of its 9 known metres. Then, until 1983, J. Mª Apellániz was in charge of the eleven annual digs, the results of which are still being studied.

In 2000, part of the Atapuerca Research Team decided to resume work here. We know that 4,000 years ago, Bronze Age populations began to inhabit the cave and left evidence of their activities- grazing, agriculture and a little hunting. We have found fragments of ceramics (bowls, small careened cups, globular pots, etc.), some decorated with zig-zag and sheaf motifs, as well as bone or bronze spatulas and awls used for this purpose, stone tools and arrow heads, buttons and necklace beads made from ivory, horn and bone. The exhumed fauna is both domestic (horse, cow, goat) and wild (deer, wild boars, beavers and several birds).