ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
The Geopark Viñales area contains an extensive and valuable archaeological heritage, where sites of historical, cultural, and natural relevance converge. In our inventory, over eighty places testify to the rich legacy of past communities.
Type Locality Ancón Formation
Schistose and clayey limestones, marls, calcareous breccias with fragments of limestones and cherts, well-stratified, ranging from violet to pink.
- Ancón Valley
Type Locality Pan de Azúcar Member
Stratified limestones, shelly, coquinal, and silicified, typical with the microfossil Conicospirillina basiliensis, and ammonites and fragments of other microfossils can be observed.
- Pan de Azúcar Mogote
Hypostratotype 2. San Cayetano Formation
Deltaic sediments, composed in this section of fine-grained shales and sandstones, laminated claystones with symmetrical ripples in some parts of the outcrop.
- Del Mango Hill
Type Locality, San Vicente Member
Bluish-gray limestones, hard, massive or very thickly stratified, where fragments of poorly preserved macrofossils can be observed, with significant development of conical karst.
- San Vicente Valley
La Legua Breccia Section
The section exhibits a cut of calcareous breccias composed of fragments of limestones and cherts. Toward the top of the section, the fine fraction predominates.
- Mogote Los Manga, El Moncada Junction
Type Locality, Zacarías Member
Clay schists ranging from gray to black and reddish on the surface due to weathering. Ammonites of the genera Ochetoceras, Vinalesphinctes, Perisphinctes, and Discosphinctes can be observed.
- Laguna de Piedras
Type Locality, Jagua Vieja Member
Dark, almost black micrites, strongly bituminous, stratified, brown-gray schists with calcareous concretions, “cheeses” with ammonites, fish, reptiles, and other fossils that are indices of the Upper Jurassic (Middle Oxfordian).
- Mogote La Jagua
Type Locality, Tumbadero Member
Micrites and calcilutites with intercalations of dark chert, with calpionellid microfauna, assigning it an age of Upper Jurassic (Tithonian)-Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian).
- Palmarito Valley, Mountains of Tumbadero (Valley Mogote)
