Torralba and Ambrona (archaeological site)

Torralba and Ambrona (Province of Soria, Castile and León, Spain) are two paleontological and archaeological sites that correspond to various fossiliferous levels with Acheulean lithic industry (Lower Paleolithic) associated, at least about 350,000 years old (Ionian, Middle Pleistocene). From these sites have been obtained fossils of large mammals, mainly elephants (Straight-tusked elephant), with remains of nearly fifty individuals from each site, in addition to large bovines and horses. A type training model elephants' graveyard has been proposed, similar to the current Africans. They also show evidence of successive occupations by human beings, such as hunting station or, more likely, carrion and quartering. The sites, traditionally studied together, are about 3 km distant, and belong to the towns of Ambrona (municipality of Miño de Medinaceli) and Torralba del Moral (municipality of Medinaceli). Known since the end of the 19th century, they were excavated first by the Marquis of Cerralbo between 1909 and 1914, later, in the early '60s and early '80s, by the American Francis Clark Howell with the collaboration of the paleontologist Emiliano Aguirre and later, in the '90s, new campaigns were carried out by Manuel Santonja and Alfredo Pérez-González. The remains from the different excavations are scattered, mainly, between the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, the Museo Numantino de Soria and the museum in situ of Ambrona. They were declared Bien de Interés Cultural in the category of "archaeological zone" on September 7, 1995. They are also declared as "a place of international geological interest of international relevance" ("Geosite") by the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain, with the designations "VP -07: Loma del Saúco, Torralba" and "VP-07b: Loma de los Huesos, Ambrona", within the category "vertebrate sites of the Pliocene-Spanish Pleistocene". The first remains appeared in 1888, with the works of canalization of the water that a Belgian company was carrying out for the first railway station of Torralba (moved later twice, before 1926 and in 1959).