Dear All:
I just upload the English version of the "Atapuerca, Human
Heritage Site", a website devoted to the Middle Pleistocene
Atapuerca palaeontological sites. The site was published previously
in Spanish, my native language.
It contains about 1400 files, several hundreds of medium-high resolution
images, several QuicktimeVR panoramas of the sites, 3D models of pelvis
and crania of
Homo heidelbergensis and almost one hour of video in
high resolution mpg format.
The site includes also some virtual fossils (VRML language) based on
medical tomography and 3D computerized reconstruction. Although these
virtual fossils are very simplified models of those used for research
purposes, they show the potential of VRML for educational purposes.
The Sierra de Atapuerca is an isolated hill of Cretaceous limestones in
the Northern part of Spain and, because of the importance of the
palaeontological Pleistocene sites, has been declared a Human Heritage
site by UNESCO last year. Since 1978, three sites (Sima de los
Huesos, Gran Dolina and Galerķa) have been excavated by several research
institutions, yielding one of the best collections of human remains and
tools in the world belonging to two different hominid species:
Homo
antecessor (800.000 yrs BP) and
Homo heidelbergensis
(300.000 yrs BP)
The Sima de Huesos site contains a bone-bearing breccia with a clay
matrix full of human fossils and carnivores. To date, more than 2000
human fossils have been found in the Sima de los Huesos, including three
very well preserved crania, one of them a complete skull. These remains
belong to at least 32 individuals.
The web site is in
http://www.ucm.es/info/paleo/ata/
and the english version at:
http://www.ucm.es/info/paleo/ata/english/
We hope you enjoy the visit. Any comment will be welcome.
Patricio Dominguez
__
Dr. Patricio DOMINGUEZ ALONSO
Department of Palaeontology
The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
patd@nhm.ac.uk
patricio@geo.ucm.es
padomin@terra.es
Tel 020 7942 5611 (internationally 0044 2079425611)
Fax 020 7942 5546 (internationally 0044 2079425546)