The Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos, inaugurated in 2010, is a world leader in the study of the evolution of mankind. UNESCO declared the Atapuerca sites a World Heritage Site in 2000. The Museum became a World Heritage Site in 2015. It was in this year that UNESCO declared the archaeological sites a “site of outstanding universal value” and included the research and divulgation infrastructures.

The building that houses the Museum, as well as the Forum Evolution Auditorium and the CENIEH (National Centre for Research on Human Evolution) are the work of Juan Navarro Baldeweg. This architect enjoys great recognition and received the National Architecture Prize in 2014.

This museum houses the findings of the Atapuerca sites and also the scientific disciplines and theories that are extracted from them.

From 1978 to the present day, excavations have been carried out in the karst massif of the Sierra de Atapuerca.  The fossils found at the site are providing a wealth of information on the evolution of the different human groups in Europe for more than a million years. Moreover, at Atapuerca there is direct evidence of the presence of five different species: Homo sp. (yet to be determined, 1,400,000 years ago), Homo antecessor (850,000 years ago), Homo heidelbergensis (500,000 years ago), as well as Homo neanderthalensis (50,000 years ago) and Homo sapiens.