This week, the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) organized the course "Between the Site and the Museum", through the Centro de Formación del Profesorado e Innovación Educativa (CFIE Burgos), for teaching purposes, to bring the work and research carried out in the laboratories of the Center to the classroom.

This course, aimed mainly at teachers of Biology and Geology, was attended by teachers from schools in the capital of Burgos, as well as from Briviesca, Lerma, Miranda de Ebro, and Sala de los Infantes, who over the course of two days followed the classes taught by researchers and technicians from the CENIEH.

On the first day, M. Isabel Sarró Moreno presented the CENIEH as a Unique Scientific and Technical Facility (ICTS) and explained its essential role in advancing scientific knowledge and promoting innovation. Then, at the Conservation and Restoration Laboratory, its head, Pilar Fernández Colón, explained the different tasks carried out from the site to the museum, including on-site intervention, restoration in the laboratory, preventive and curative conservation, etc. 

The classes continued in the Geochronology laboratories where Davinia Moreno García demonstrated the dating methods used in the CENIEH (Luminescence, Cosmogenic Nuclides, Paleomagnetism, Uranium Series, Electronic Paramagnetic Resonance) and the very important role of geochronology in the contextualization of deposits. The day ended at the Digital Mapping and 3D Analysis Laboratory with Adrián Martínez Fernández, who went through all the techniques used for mapping, reconstruction, and spatial analysis of geological and archaeological elements.

On the second day, Ana Álvaro Gallo, head of the Archaeometry Laboratory, highlighted the main objective of this laboratory: the characterization of materials through the mineralogical and geochemical analysis of sediments and rocks. For her part, Belén Notario Collado, head of the Microscopy and Micro-Computed Tomography Laboratory, spoke of the advantages of micro-computed tomography in the conservation of archaeological and paleontological heritage, since it allows, among other things, to assess the state of conservation of a cultural asset and avoid making a direct intervention on an original. 

At the Experimental Archaeology and Taphonomy Laboratory, Samuel Castillo Jiménez explained, among many other things, the manufacturing processes of the different lithic tools used in Prehistory. Finally, attendees visited the Collections deposited at the CENIEH, including the Archaeopaleontological Collections that are kept in the Vault.

This course enjoyed the collaboration of the Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT) – Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades.