Natural spaces

SIMA DE LAS PALOMAS CABEZO GORDO

SIMA DE LAS PALOMAS CABEZO GORDO

La Sima de las Palomas is located on the southern slope of Cabezo Gordo, the only mountainous elevation in the municipality of Torre Pacheco, and a…
La Sima de las Palomas is located on the southern slope of Cabezo Gordo, the only mountainous elevation in the municipality of Torre Pacheco, and a historical reference for navigators and residents of the Campo de Cartagena.   In 1991, the accidental discovery of the jawbone of a Neanderthal prompted the scientific excavation of la Sima de las Palomas, the most important archaeological site of Neanderthal man in the Spanish Mediterranean.   The excavation work has made it possible to recover more than 300 skeletal fragments, between bones and teeth, which highlight the low height of the adults despite their great robustness typical of Neanderthal muscles. They have been dated at 50,000 years, i.e. during the last ice age.   The three almost complete skeletons, excavated in an anatomical connection and in a good state of preservation, are of exceptional importance for the study of the Neanderthal fossil record. The young woman "Paloma" and the child were found under an accumulation of large stones, with knees and elbows bent and hands next to the face, suggesting that they could have been buried intentionally.   The information that these remains offer us is fundamental to understand the long evolutionary chain of the human being.
  The Neanderthals of la Sima de las Palomas left abundant remains of the animals they used to hunt, from horses, deer, aurochs and the Spanish goat to turtles and rabbits. Research into the phytoliths on their teeth indicates that they also ate vegetable matter. In order to obtain and prepare food, they carved tools from flint, limestone, marble, calcite, quartz and quartzite, which have been found at the site, typical of Mussolithic technology in the Middle Palaeolithic period.   This hill of aggregates and quartz is also of great biotic, landscape and cultural interest. Declared a Protected Landscape in 1998, it has a typical fauna and an almost exclusive flora.