AT A GLANCE
Why go?
On the dry high plains of eastern Granada, a small town guards one of the most contested and fascinating stories in European prehistory: that early humans reached this continent far earlier than once believed. The Orce Prehistory and Paleontology Museum—now housed in the Josep Gibert First Settlers of Europe centre—presents that story through more than 24,000 fossils and stone tools pulled from three internationally important sites just outside town.↗↗↗
The collection traces the Guadix-Baza Basin back roughly 1.5 to 1.8 million years, when a vast freshwater lake edged these plains and sabre-toothed cats, giant hyenas, hippos, and rhinoceroses crowded its shores. Among the animal bones, researchers identified chipped stone tools and a partial skull that ignited a decades-long debate about who was first in Europe and when. The museum lets visitors stand close to that evidence and form their own conclusions.↗↗
