Orce is a municipality located in the
province of Granada
Granada is a province of southern Spain, in the eastern part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is bordered by the provinces of Albacete, Murcia, Almería, Jaén, Córdoba, Málaga, and the Mediterranean Sea (along the Costa Tropical). ...
, in southeastern
Spain. According to the 2009
census (
INE), the city has a population of 1333 inhabitants.
Paleoanthropology
Orce is the location of the paleo-
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
sites known as
Barranco León,
Venta Micena Venta may refer to:
Architecture
*Venta (establishment), a Spanish typical inn generally located in unpopulated and remote rural areas.
Places
*Venta (river), a river in Lithuania and Latvia
*Venta (city), a city in Lithuania
*Venta (village), a v ...
, and
Fuente Nueva 3
Fuente, Spanish for "fountain" or "spring", may refer to:
People
* Claire dela Fuente (1958–2021), Filipino singer
* José Manuel Fuente (1945–1996), Spanish road racing cyclist
* Justin Fuente (born 1976), college football coach in U.S.
* ...
, near the basin of an ancient lake where fossils have been preserved in sediment. Josep Gibert of the M. Crusafont Institute in
Sabadell
Sabadell () is a city in Catalonia, Spain. It is in the south of the ''comarca'' of Vallès Occidental and its joint capital (co-capital), on the River Ripoll, north of Barcelona. Sabadell is located above sea level.
Sabadell pioneered the Ind ...
has led an excavation team there. He asserts that the sites have
Oldowan-style stone tools dating between 1.5 and 1.8 million years ago. If the early estimates are supported, these would represent the oldest stone tool finds in Europe. Other scholars prefer a more conservative date for the stone tools of 1.2 million years. Together with the
hominid
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...
remains at the
Atapuerca Mountains, the tools are evidence that human ancestors settled in western Europe more than one million years (Ma) ago.
Recent numerical dating studies using
Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) method applied to fossil teeth and quartz grains have provided ages of ca. 1.2 Ma for Fuente Nueva 3, and ca. 1.4 Ma for Barranco León and Venta Micena.
References
External links
Official site of the Village of Orce
Municipalities in the Province of Granada
{{Granada-geo-stub