The Gibraltar property is essentially a Neanderthal occupation site, used between c. 127,000 and 32,000 years ago. On the east side of the Rock of Gibraltar, the site rises from sea level where several caves including Gorham’s and Vanguard are located, to the highest point of the Rock, 426 metres above the sea at the top of the Mediterranean Steps. The site covers 280,000 square metres, or 3% of Gibraltar’s land area. The Gibraltar Nature Reserve acts as a buffer zone for the Site. Together the site and buffer zone equate to over 40% of the territory of Gibraltar.
Gibraltar is renowned for its contribution to science in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the study of geology and palaeontology (the study of fossils to gain information about the history of life on earth and the structure of rocks). Gibraltar is where the first complete Neanderthal skull was found and presented to the Gibraltar Scientific Society by Lieutenant Edmund Flint of the Royal Artillery in 1848. But eight years later in 1856 fossils were discovered in a cave in the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, Germany, and the Neanderthal people were named after that site. A second skull, The Devil’s Tower Child, was found in Gibraltar in 1926.
Tours of Gorham's Cave
Tours can be booked at the Museum on neanderthals@gibmuseum.gi or telephone +350 20074289
Dolphin Adventure - info@dolphin.gi or Tel- +350 20050650