Atapuerca, Camino Santiago

Atapuerca is a small town along the Camino, and as I arrived, I looked for an albergue to drop off my backpack before heading to the UNESCO-designated Archaeological Site of Atapuerca. Just outside town, the Sierra de Atapuerca rises gently from the landscape, a low mountain range that doesn’t look like much at first glance. But hidden beneath its hills lies one of Europe’s most important archaeological and paleontological sites.

This place is of immense importance for understanding human evolution. The caves here have revealed a timeline of human life stretching back nearly a million years. Excavations have uncovered stone tools, ancient bones, and even burial sites. Among the most famous discoveries is the “Sima de los Huesos”, or “Pit of Bones”, where the remains of at least 32 individuals of different ages and both genders were discovered. Most belong to Homo heidelbergensis, an ancient species thought to be a direct ancestor of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

But the story doesn’t stop there. Layers of evidence suggest people from the Neolithic period (5500 to 3000 BCE) and the Bronze Age (3000 to 1000 BCE) also passed through these hills. Their tools, engravings, and cave paintings are small but tangible traces of the generations who lived, hunted, and survived here.

It was almost by chance that this site came to light, thanks to a railway project in the late 19th century. Workers carved a trench through the mountains to connect Burgos and Bilbao, revealing a network of caves and sediment layers that were packed with ancient bones, tools, and fossils. Although a few fossils were noticed at the time, it wasn’t until the 1970s that large-scale excavations got underway. Since then, the discoveries have been incredible, including an undefined Homo species dating back 1.3 million years and Homo antecessor from around 850,000 years ago.

As I quietly walked around the site, watching archaeologists at work, I drifted off into my own thoughts. Standing here, I imagined those earlier humans walking these same hills, long before roads, cafés, or pilgrims with backpacks. What was the climate like? What plants covered this land? I pictured them hunting, gathering, looking after their families, just trying to survive. So many questions filled my mind, yet the answers lay buried somewhere beneath my feet. It’s not often I get to visit a place that can help shape my understanding of our species.