Casas de Garcimolina fossil site (Proyecto Chikuto)

A fossil-bearing layer crops out in an old quarry between Casas de Garcimolina and Algarra. Since 2024 a team from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid’s Centro para la Integración en Paleobiología has studied it with the Museo de Paleontología de Castilla-La Mancha. The first field season recovered around 350 specimens, transferred to the museum, and the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha has continued funding the project.

The project is named after a now deceased amateur from Landete who showed palaeontologists fossil sites, and grew out of a residents’ initiative: they raised more than €3,000 through crowdfunding and organised an exhibition of local fossils, which residents recognised from their walks. Six lecturers and four students worked there in July 2024. They began by recording the sequence of layers and determining where to excavate. The initial idea is that it was shallow, flowing water carrying remains of life from the surrounding area: there are freshwater bivalves, many stoneworts, algae of shallow, well-lit water, fish and small teeth yet to be identified. They were seeking another piece of the puzzle of the Serranía’s Cretaceous wetlands, alongside Las Hoyas and Buenache de la Sierra, rather than a star animal.

It joins the list of sites that have made Cuenca a province of fossils, alongside Las Hoyas and Lo Hueco.

Plan your visit

This is a site under excavation: do not visit or collect anything.