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 stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of its course if it run ...

, 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 populous municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of th ...

. It is located roughly 16 kilometers west of the Sierra de Atapuerca, 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 World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

in 2000, has yielded some of the exhibits at the museum. Since its inauguration on July 13, 2010, and until July 8, 2011, the museum received a total of 279,000 visitors, thus becoming the most visited museum in Castile and León, and approaching the 10th most visited museum in Spain. In 2022, the museum managed to recover the pre-pandemic figures, obtaining 142,766 visitors (only the permanent exhibition of the MEH, without counting the visits to the temporary exhibitions, nor to the Archaeological Site of Atapuerca), approaching the 151,877 visits it had in 2019, once again placing itself among the most visited museums in Spain. It forms the centerpiece of the so-called "Complejo de la Evolución Humana" (Human Evolution Compound), comprising a

convention center A convention center (American and British English spelling differences, American English; or conference centre in British English) is a large building that is designed to hold a Convention (meeting), convention, where individuals and groups ...

, the CENIEH research institution, and the museum itself.

Architecture

The building was designed by award-winning Spanish architect Juan Navarro Baldeweg. 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 (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic Church, Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilians, Castilian priest named Saint Dominic, Dominic de Gu ...

(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, indi ...

where his design won over others made by Cruz y Ortiz,

Steven Holl Steven Holl (born December 9, 1947) is a New York–based American architect and watercolorist. His work includes the 2022 Rubenstein Commons at the Institute for Advanced Study; the 2020 Campus expansion of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston inc ...

Arata Isozaki Arata Isozaki (磯崎新, ''Isozaki Arata''; 23 July 1931 – 28 December 2022) was a Japanese architect, urban designer, and theorist from Ōita, Ōita, Ōita. He was awarded the Royal Gold Medal in 1986 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize i ...

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 ta ...

'' (

Lucy Lucy is an English language, 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 ar ...

) * ''

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, Sterkfontei ...

'' * ''

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 at Olduvai Gorge, Ta ...

'' * ''

Homo habilis ''Homo habilis'' ( 'handy man') is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.4 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago ( mya). Upon species description in 1964, ''H. habilis'' was highly ...

'' * '' Homo georgicus'' * ''

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 '' H. erectus'' is an ongoing and unresol ...

'' * ''

Homo antecessor ''Homo antecessor'' (Latin "pioneer man") is an 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 during the Early ...

'' * ''

Homo heidelbergensis ''Homo heidelbergensis'' is a species of archaic human from the Middle Pleistocene of Europe and Africa, as well as potentially Asia depending on the taxonomic convention used. The species-level classification of ''Homo'' during the Middle Pleis ...

'' * ''

Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle to Late Pleistocene. Neanderthal extinctio ...

'' * ''

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 Broken Hill mine in Kabwe, Northe ...

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

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, was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames. Later reports say ...

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 Buildings and structures in Burgos Museums in Castile and León