U-series and ESR dating of Atapuerca Pleistocene sites: Sima de Los Huesos, Gran Dolina and Trinchera Galeria.

The Sierra de Atapuerca, near Burgos in north-central Spain, contains sever al archaeological and fossiliferous deposits of major importance for Europe an Prehistory. Most of the sites are grouped in two sectors: The Trinchera del Ferrocaril and the Cueva Mayor. The Trinchera, a railroad cut made into the Cretaceous limestone bedrock at the end of the last century, exposed s everal karst-fill deposits of which the most outstanding is the Gran Dolina . The karstic infilling of Gran Dolina is divided into 11 stratigraphical l evels. The lower layers provided human remains associated to an archaic ind ustry and a typical Early Pleistocene fauna. A second infilling named Galer ia has also given human bones associated with animal remains and lithic art efacts including handaxes. The Cueva Mayor is a major deep cave complex wit h many km of galleries. Within the Cueva Mayor is the site of the Sima de l os Huesos that yielded about 3,000 human remains belonging to a minimum of 32 individuals. This deposit is the most complete and important collection known in the world for the Middle Pleistocene. The dating results obtained from combined U-series and ESR methods on teeth, bones and calcite of these sites indicate a very ancient human occupation in Gran Dolina and on the o ther hand that fossiliferous levels of la Sima de los Huesos are dated betw een 200 and 300 ka. (C) 2001 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier S AS.