ELEPHANT PITPilar Quirós Iniesta

Location

Climate

Historical development

Material Remains

Sources

Elephant Pit is located in the Railway Trench, located in the Sierra of Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain).

Elephant pit belongs to the biggest complexof Atapuerca’s prehistoric sites.

Sierra de Atapuerca

Elephant Pit is located between the Gallery and the entrance of the Railway Trench site:

1_Gran Dolina

2_Gallery

3_Elephant Pit

(Sima del Elefante)

4_Entrance

Explanation of the life of the Homids in the Elephant Pit and its structure.

As the Iberian Peninsula is located between the Atlantic Ocean, theMediterranean Sea and Africa, its climate was affected by theEuropean weather events and African pluviations (periods duringglaciations with higher levels of humidity), generating a wide varietyof environments.

The landscape around Elephant Pit would consist mainly of arainforest, with probably drier open areas and with a distinctlycontinental Mediterranean climate similar to the one we can find todayin Burgos.

Elephant Pit was opened more than 1 million years ago and it was refilled with the material near to its limestone roof around 120,000 years ago.

In 1996 its lower levels started being excavated.

In 2000 the first samples of human activity were found there. They found a small flint flake that shows the human presence in this site from at least one million years ago.

In 2001 the excavation of the higher levels started and Atapuerca team found a big production of stone tools and they also found elephant remains (bones).

In 2006 they decided to move the scaffoldings away to have the possibility of digging in the lower parts of the site.

Nowadays a new scaffolding system has been built there with two objectives: continue with the excavation in the low part under the present road and transform this part of the site into a tourist place.

Flint tools and flakes, some of them dated to 1.5-1.2 million years, corresponding to Mode 1. Different tools have been found in superior levels.

Stone tools discovered at Sima del Elefante include:

1. Mode 3 (designation by JGD Clark, still in use today)2. Mode 23. Oldowan (Mode 1 in Clarke's designation)

Stone tools: Mode 2 and Mode 3

Fauna remains (elephant bones, deer, hippos, rhinos, lions, bobcats, bears, foxes, rodents, ospreys, turtles, and tortoises).

Human remains dated to at least 1.2 million years

The most important remain is a jawbone found in 2007 dated to 1.2 million years, which has been assigned to Homo antecessor.

This human remains are the oldest sample of hominids in Europe.

In summer 2008 a human phalange was found. It is the first phalange of the fifth finger of an adult.

http://www.atapuerca.org

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_de_Atapuerca

http://www.atapuerca.tv/atapuerca/yacimiento_elefante

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoria_en_la_pen%C3%ADnsula_ib%C3%A9rica

http://www.lagranepoca.com/32666-sima-atapuerca-confirman-presencia-humana-13-millones-anos

http://www.diariodeatapuerca.net/Simadelelefante.pdf

http://archaeology.about.com/od/shthroughsiterms/qt/Sima-Del-Elefante-Spain.htm