Urumaco is a town in the state

States of Venezuela

Venezuela is divided into 23 states , 1 Capital District and the Federal Dependencies that consist of a large number of Venezuelan islands...

 of Falcón

Falcón

Falcón State is one of the 23 states into which Venezuela is divided. The state capital is Coro.-Demographics and geography:Falcón State covers a total surface area of 24,800 km² and, in 2010, had an estimated population of 950,057. The Paraguaná Peninsula is connected to the rest of the...

 in Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. It is of world importance for its fossils. The arid climate of the region means that the fossils are not hidden by vegetation. They were first made known to science by geologists who came across them while looking for oil (which is abundant in some parts of Venezuela). The paleontological wealth of Urumaco makes it the most fossil-rich zone of northern South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

.

Stupendemys geographicus, the largest turtle ever to have existed was found here in the 1970s by researchers from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. More recently publicity has been attracted by discoveries of the giant rodent Phoberomys pattersoni

Phoberomys pattersoni

Phoberomys pattersoni is an extinct rodent that lived in the ancient Orinoco River delta approximately 8 million years ago. It was the second-largest of the roughly 7 species of its genus. Like many other rodents, Phoberomys was a herbivore with high-crowned premolars and molars...

from the Miocene

Miocene

The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...

 epoch.

Since 2000 there has been a museum in the town, the Museo Paleontológico de Urumaco.
Also, in Taratara, a small town near Coro

Santa Ana de Coro

Coro is the capital of Falcón State and the oldest city in the west of Venezuela.-History:The city was founded on July 26, 1527 by Spanish colonists. The name "Coro" is believed to be an indigenous word meaning "wind".The city had a turbulent history in colonial times and suffered a number of...

, there is an Archeology and Paleontology Park, where the oldest human remains in Venezuela from 15,000 years ago, can be seen. Also, there are petroglyph

Petroglyph

Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...

s 14,000 years old that give an account of the early inhabitants of the area.