We’ve seen bones from over a million years ago, slept in a cave, hiked to a 12th Century Moorish watchtower and witnessed an entire village re-enact a battle that took place more than 600 years ago---all in a week. What we haven’t seen much of is wi-fi; sorry for our absence.
We traveled from the foothills of the snowy Sierra Nevadas to a moon-scape land full of caves, bones and dust. It was only two hours by car but millions of years in geology away. We had arrived in what had been a pre-historic massive lake. Today there is little water to be seen; rocky, dry soil holds small olive and almond trees straining out an existence and hundreds of caves are hollowed out of what used to be the sides of the lake basin.
We were lucky to be shown the Archeology Museum and dig sites by the knowledgable MariCarmen-- a woman whose family has lived in Orce as far back as anyone can remember. We would see her later in the week dressed as a dancer to celebrate a major town fiesta and then again dressed as a Moorish woman re-enacting a great battle.
That would be the way it went in Orce. We would see the baker/grocer when we went to eat lunch; run into the vegetable grocer at the fiesta and even bump into the mayor on the street. It reminded me of what Walnut Grove from Laura Ingall’s books might be like to visit if we could go back in time.
MariCarmen showed us saber-tooth tigers.
We saw the fossils of a giant prehistoric elephant, hyena, a giant deer (Olivia’s Dad we’re sure would want to claim its rack- that's a piece of it above!) that measured six feet high, hippopotamus, wooly mammoth remains and a piece of what they believe is the oldest human remains in Europe---1.5 Million years old.
We learned that these peoples didn’t yet know fire and scavenged the remains of what the hyena would kill. They sucked marrow from bones and extracted the brains from skulls- essentially the leftovers! What really struck us was that the humans were the carrions (First kid-friend to answer wins a Spanish souvenir! You guys are doing great at these quizzes!).
MariCarmen told us a tremendous story when we went to visit one of the dig-sites. She explained that a sheep-herder would always speak of finding bones where he grazed his sheep. The town thought he was crazy and even had a nickname for him. In the ‘70s archeologists used computer modeling to decide that this region would yield a trove of remains. They went to one town, Guadix and came up with nothing.
The archeologists continued up the ancient basin until they stumbled upon locals that said they should see the shepherd. The archeologists would go on to find 7,000 bones at the site just above his cave house. Here’s a picture of his chimney- can you see it? You can spy where the cave houses are by spotting the chimneys; there are zillions.
The shepherd died at 96, happy that scientists from all over the world had affirmed what he'd said all along- there were bones everywhere! The archeologists dug at the site until 1992 when a politician refused to grant a permit. It's remained embroiled in a 'political' battle ever since. The famous site sits open, exposed to the elements. The archeologist who found the skull shard died two years ago never being able to dig there again- his ashes were scattered at the site. Whenever we'd ask what the 'political' problem was people would shake their heads in disgust and say, 'it's complicated.'
