The Dinosaur Route in El Castellar (Teruel, Spain): Palaeontology as a Factor of Territorial Development and Scientific
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The Dinosaur Route in El Castellar (Teruel, Spain): Palaeontology as a Factor of Territorial Development and Scientific Education in a Sparsely Inhabited Area Alberto Cobos 1
&
Luis Alcalá 1 & Rafael Royo-Torres 1
Received: 19 November 2019 / Accepted: 20 May 2020 # The European Association for Conservation of the Geological Heritage 2020
Abstract Research into and conservation of geological heritage and the use of the knowledge gained for the education of the general public lay the groundwork for the creation and consolidation of specialised museums and the dissemination of knowledge among a more diverse audience. In this way, resources linked to Geology will become a territorial development factor and move societies to consider them as indispensable resources for their benefit. This, along with heritage laws, will ensure that these elements are provided with the stewardship to ensure their long-term care and maintenance. This action plan is being carried out with the geological and palaeontological heritage in some places of the province of Teruel (Spain) where, even in remote areas with little more than one inhabitant per square kilometre, the research, development and innovation have resulted in various museography actions in dinosaur sites. The Dinosaur Route in a small village called El Castellar, which already has other tourist attractions related to “terrible lizards”, is one example of research being placed at the service of territorial development in rural areas. The route is a 2.3-km walking trail that consists, mainly, of two dinosaur fossil sites that have been enabled for tourist visits which have great educational value for all audiences: Camino El Berzal, with tracks, and San Cristóbal, with various original bones of a stegosaurid. The latter is the first site in Spain where dinosaur fossils can be seen in situ in a permanent exhibition. Keywords Dinosaur fossils . Stegosaurs . Museography . Socio-economic development . Depopulation
Introduction and Background About Depopulation The province of Teruel, which occupies some 14,809 km2, had 265,908 inhabitants in 1910 and 136,473 in 2000. It has been reduced to only 133,344 in 2019 according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística de España (https://www. ine.es). This gives an average population density of nine inhabitants per square kilometre (almost a tenth of the Spanish average). In fact, 145 municipalities in the province (61%) have a population density of less than four inhabitants per square kilometre, and 196 of the 236 municipalities have less than 500 inhabitants. Of the provincial population, 26.7% is over 65 years of age, compared with the national average of * Alberto Cobos [email protected] 1
Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis/Museo Aragonés de Paleontología, Avenida de Sagunto s/n, 44002 Teruel, Spain
16.7%. In 2019, an average age of 56 years old was recorded in the 95 municipalities with less than 100 inhabitants, according to census (not all of which live in these towns year-round). Given
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