Huellas de Dinosaurio de Santisteban del Puerto

This Natural Monument will carry you back to the distant past. At this palaeontological site, 24 dinosaur prints were found from the group known as Arcosaurs, more than 230 million years old.

These fossilised prints, known in Spanish as "icnitas", are not easy to find. Certain environmental conditions must exist on order for them to be formed. One of these is that the material the animals walked on has to be different from that subsequently deposited. These prints were almost certainly pressed onto sediments on the bed of a river or lake, and later covered by another material that allowed for their conservation across history.

These indications from before man's presence on earth provide valuable information about the animals that made them and about the environment in which they lived. The shape of the prints tells us that these dinosaurs walked on two legs, with movements similar to those of a kangaroo. You can even deduce information such as their approximate size and weight, age and social habits. The way that the 24 prints are laid out facing in the same direction suggests a group of animals moving to a specific location. Traces of fossilised pollen and vegetation also show environmental conditions that were very different from those today. The vegetation comprised conifers, palm trees and ferns arising from a hotter, more humid climate than today's.