Museum of Human Evolution, in Burgos

The Museum of Human Evolution, the MEH, is on Paseo Sierra de Atapuerca in Burgos, across the Arlanzón from the cathedral. It holds the original fossils from the sites in the sierra and explains human evolution with life-size reconstructions. It is the best way to understand what you later see at the Trinchera del Ferrocarril, and it is also worth a visit on its own if you do not have time to go to the sierra.

The building

It was designed by the architect Juan Navarro Baldeweg as a great box of light: a double-skinned glass prism 30 metres high, 60 wide and 90 deep, with almost 15,000 m² and the permanent exhibition spread over four floors. From the entrance ramp you see the city reflected in the facade, and from the top floor you look out over the Atapuerca ecosystems recreated inside. It is the central building of the Human Evolution complex, next to the CENIEH and the Fórum Evolución.

What not to miss

The museum itself highlights ten pieces and spaces. The fossils of Homo antecessor, about 850,000 years old, found at the Gran Dolina, and the reconstruction of that excavation, where much of the story begins. Miguelón, a Homo heidelbergensis from around half a million years ago, named in honour of Miguel Induráin. Excalibur, a quartzite hand axe that has been interpreted as a possible first symbolic gesture. The hominid gallery, with ten realistically reconstructed ancestors, and Carletto, a feathered Neanderthal by the palaeo-artist Fabio Fogliazza. There is also a replica of the brig Beagle, in which Darwin sailed to the Galápagos; Daniel Canogar's brain installation; and, on the ground floor, a tribute to Santiago Ramón y Cajal with his drawings of neurons at large scale. On the second floor, an augmented reality system fills the four landscapes of the sierra with hominids and animals.

Opening hours and tickets

It is open Tuesday to Friday from 10:00 to 14:30 and from 16:30 to 20:00, Saturday from 10:00 to 20:00 and Sunday from 10:00 to 15:00; it is closed on Mondays. The last admission is half an hour before closing. General admission costs €6; reduced, €4, for young people aged 8 to 18, schoolchildren, university students, pilgrims and groups of more than eight with a booking. It is free for under-8s and over-65s, large and single-parent families, the unemployed and teachers, among others, and for everyone on Wednesday, on Tuesday and Thursday from 19:00, and on 23 April, 12 October and 6 December. General admission is bought online; discounted tickets at the ticket office. Signs are in Spanish and English, there is an official app and the education team gives short explanations in the galleries.

Getting there and what to combine

Burgos bus station is about 300 metres away. The train station, Burgos-Rosa de Lima, is about 5 km to the north, with city buses and taxis to the centre.

Allow two hours. If you are heading to the sierra, the ideal order is museum first and sites afterwards, leaving from the CAYAC in Ibeas de Juarros, 14 km away, or from the CAREX in Atapuerca, 20 km away. If you only have one afternoon in Burgos, go on a Tuesday or Thursday after 19:00, when admission is free.