This set of five sites , which was found by chance, has been investigated by specialists from different disciplines for years and the names of the directors of this project are well known to us:Juan Luís Arsuaga, paleoanthropologist, director of the UCM-ISCIII Research Center on Evolution and Behavior Humans and co-director of the Atapuerca research project; Enrique Baquedano, archaeologist, director of the Regional Archaeological Museum (MAR) of the Community of Madrid and co-director of the research project in Olduvai, Tanzania; and Alfredo Pérez-González, geologist, deputy director of the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) in Burgos.
For 12 years this project has been growing and developing largely according to the discoveries of each campaign, but without a doubt 2015 is the one that will be remembered for many years since they have found a rhino head complete and a part of the jaw of a Neanderthal girl nicknamed “the girl from Lozoya” . These remains would demonstrate the type of environment in which they lived, the type of food with which they ate and the possibility of knowing the type of thought of a Neanderthal is also considered, thanks to the possibility that the rhinoceros skull was used as a ritual form . The multitude of disciplines developed in the Cueva de la Buena Pinta, Cueva Des-cubierta, Cueva del Camino (already closed to research, can only be visited), Cueva del Ocelado and Abrigo de Navalmaíllo sites; highlights the relevance, the rigor of the work and the encouraging future of this research in the north of the Community of Madrid.
Thanks to all this, Pinilla del Valle has been proclaimed the "Valley of the Neanderthals", due to the multitude of finds of this species:only in one set of sites have remains of 3 individuals respect to the 20 distributed throughout the Iberian Peninsula).
The “Valley of the Neanderthals” was inaugurated a day after the open days, by the President of the Community of Madrid, Cristina Cifuentes, who assured that this set of deposits “s It will become an important interpretation center of Neanderthal man. Without a doubt, the research will provide for many years of work on Neanderthals, an exciting species.
Hundreds of people, specialists and amateurs, attended this event where the same researchers who collaborate in the sites carried out complete guided tours (free!). Nor did the smallest of the house or the furriest miss it... The Valley of the Neanderthals was full of pets and children who wanted to enjoy and learn from their most distant origins!