The Museum of Human Evolution (Spanish: ''Museo de la Evolución Humana - MEH'') is situated on the south bank of the

river Arlanzón A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

, in the Spanish city of

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of t ...

. It is located roughly 16 kilometers west of the

Sierra de Atapuerca The Atapuerca Mountains ( es, Sierra de Atapuerca) is a karstic hill formation near the village of Atapuerca in the province of Burgos (autonomous community of Castile and Leon), northern Spain. In a still ongoing excavation campaign, rich fos ...

, the location of some of the most important human fossil finds in the world. In addition, the Archaeological site of Atapuerca, which was declared a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

in 2000, has yielded some of the exhibits at the museum. It forms the centerpiece of the so-called "Complejo de la Evolución Humana" (Human Evolution Compound), comprising a

convention center A convention center (American English; or conference centre in British English) is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typica ...

, the CENIEH research institution, and the museum itself.

Architecture

The building was designed by award-winning Spanish architect

Juan Navarro Baldeweg Juan Navarro Baldeweg (11 June 1939, Santander) is a Spanish architect and professor at the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM). He is currently retired from architectural practice. Baldeweg studied at the San Fernand ...

. The land on which it was built was the "solar de Caballería," a large plot of land in central Burgos where once had stood the convent of San Pablo, one of the foremost houses in Castile of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

(also known as the Order of Preachers). After its demise in the mid-19th century, military barracks were built in its place. The demolition of the barracks in the 20th century left a significant, purposeless void used as a car park; not until 2000 was the decision made to build a museum on human evolution in its place. Navarro was chosen as the architect after an international

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

where his design won over others made by

Cruz y Ortiz Cruz y Ortiz arquitectos is an architectural studio founded by Antonio Cruz Villalón and Antonio Ortiz García. The studio have offices in Seville and in Amsterdam. Biography Architect Antonio Cruz Villalón was born in Seville, Spain, in 1948 ...

Steven Holl Steven Holl (born December 9, 1947) is a New York-based American architect and watercolorist. Among his most recognized works are the 2019 REACH expansion of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the 2019 Hunters Point Library in Q ...

Arata Isozaki Arata Isozaki (磯崎新, ''Isozaki Arata''; born 23 July 1931) is a Japanese architect, urban designer, and theorist from Ōita. He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1986 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019. Biography Isozaki was ...

and

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...

. The museum includes more than 25 large format projections, 360º circular projection and more than 50 video sources.

Structure

The interior landscaping project recreates the scenery of the Sierra de Atapuerca. File:Burgos - Museo de la Evolución Humana (MEH), interiores 12.jpg File:Burgos - Museo de la Evolución Humana (MEH), interiores 17.jpg File:Burgos - Museo de la Evolución Humana (MEH), interiores 04.jpg File:Museo de la Evolución Humana.Burgos (4976480533).jpg File:Museo de la Evolución Humana (35466406775).jpg File:Museo de la Evolución Humana (35466328365).jpg File:MEH 01.jpg File:Burgos - Museo de la Evolución Humana (MEH), interiores 19.jpg File:Museo de la Evolución Humana.Burgos (4976763721).jpg File:Museo de la Evolución Humana (34624787224).jpg Level -1 displays archaeological and paleontological complex sites of the Sierra de Atapuerca and a reproduction of the Sima de los Huesos. The sites of the Gran Dolina and Sima del Elefante are portrayed. Level 0 is dedicated the history of human evolution with 10 hyperrealistic reproductions of human ancestors, made by French sculptor Élisabeth Daynès. These 10 inhabitants of the museum represent: *

Australopithecus afarensis ''Australopithecus afarensis'' is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived from about 3.9–2.9 million years ago (mya) in the Pliocene of East Africa. The first fossils were discovered in the 1930s, but major fossil finds would not ...

(

Lucy Lucy is an English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings are Luci, Luce, Lu ...

) *

Australopithecus africanus ''Australopithecus africanus'' is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived between about 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago in the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of South Africa. The species has been recovered from Taung, Sterkfonte ...

Paranthropus boisei ''Paranthropus boisei'' is a species of australopithecine from the Early Pleistocene of East Africa about 2.5 to 1.15 million years ago. The holotype specimen, OH 5, was discovered by palaeoanthropologist Mary Leakey in 1959, and described by h ...

Homo habilis ''Homo habilis'' ("handy man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, ''H. habilis'' was highly ...

Homo georgicus The Dmanisi hominins, Dmanisi people, or Dmanisi man were a population of Early Pleistocene hominins whose fossils have been recovered at Dmanisi, Georgia. The fossils and stone tools recovered at Dmanisi range in age from 1.85–1.77 million y ...

Homo ergaster ''Homo ergaster'' is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Africa in the Early Pleistocene. Whether ''H. ergaster'' constitutes a species of its own or should be subsumed into ''Homo erectus, H. erectus'' is an ongoin ...

Homo antecessor ''Homo antecessor'' (Latin "pioneer man") is an Extinction, extinct species of archaic human recorded in the Spanish Archaeological Site of Atapuerca, Sierra de Atapuerca, a productive archaeological site, from 1.2 to 0.8 million years ago durin ...

Homo heidelbergensis ''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' in ...

Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ag ...

Homo rhodesiensis ''Homo rhodesiensis'' is the species name proposed by Arthur Smith Woodward (1921) to classify Kabwe 1 (the "Kabwe skull" or "Broken Hill skull", also "Rhodesian Man"), a Middle Stone Age fossil recovered from a cave at Broken Hill, or Kabwe, No ...

Also on this floor is the reproduction of the stern of the

HMS Beagle HMS ''Beagle'' was a 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, one of more than 100 ships of this class. The vessel, constructed at a cost of £7,803 (roughly equivalent to £ in 2018), was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on th ...

on which Darwin made his nearly 5-year trip around the world, including his stopover in the Galapagos Islands. Level 1 On this level, the visitor can review different milestones in the evolution of culture. Level 2 displays three main ecosystems of human evolution: the jungle, savannah, and tundra-steppe of the last glaciation

References

* {{authority control Museums established in 2010 Archaeological museums in Spain Natural history museums in Spain

Museum of Human Evolution The Museum of Human Evolution (Spanish: ''Museo de la Evolución Humana - MEH'') is situated on the south bank of the river Arlanzón, in the Spanish city of Burgos. It is located roughly 16 kilometers west of the Sierra de Atapuerca, the loca ...

Buildings and structures in Burgos Museums in Castile and León