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How to get here?Pre-History
Pre-History
Humans have existed in the Eastern Pyrenees for about a million years. Some rare tools intricately carved from quartz found during a dig near Millas and Le Boulou show the presence of a human population, probably “homo erectus”.
The most famous of our ancestors is without doubt “Tautavel Man”, whose skull – along with the remains of bones of many similar beings – was found at Caune de l’Arago, a cave where he lived some 450,000 years ago.
Thousands and thousands of years passed before this crude ‘man’, with a deep forehead and impressive jawbone, evolved into a more “modern” human (Neanderthal Man, the first human to bury his dead) around 60,000 B.C. then, again some thousands of years later, to a man nearer to our physical appearance today. This is the Man of Cro-Magnon (homo sapiens-sapiens) of whom there are many traces in the Eastern Pyrenees and who appeared in Europe about 40,000 years B.C.
It was around 7,000 B.C. that agriculture was developed: mainly the cultivation of wheat and barley and farming: the domestication of goats, sheep, cattle and pigs.
The first grouping of dwellings appeared, then larger and larger villages with their regional and social organizations and their customs and beliefs. Interaction with other populations increased and together these formed the first signs of a specific culture.
Now evolution started to move more quickly, especially with the invention of metalworking. Copper was found and used around 2,500 B.C. and bronze a thousand years later. It was 850 B.C. before working with iron began, later to become a specialty of the Catalans.
Civilization moved on and the first large built-up areas developed, for example Ruscino, today Château-Roussillon (from where “Roussillon" gets its name) and Illiberis which is now Elne.
But with all these riches came rivalry; with iron and steel came weapons and conquests and defeats followed.
History had begun.
The most famous of our ancestors is without doubt “Tautavel Man”, whose skull – along with the remains of bones of many similar beings – was found at Caune de l’Arago, a cave where he lived some 450,000 years ago.
Thousands and thousands of years passed before this crude ‘man’, with a deep forehead and impressive jawbone, evolved into a more “modern” human (Neanderthal Man, the first human to bury his dead) around 60,000 B.C. then, again some thousands of years later, to a man nearer to our physical appearance today. This is the Man of Cro-Magnon (homo sapiens-sapiens) of whom there are many traces in the Eastern Pyrenees and who appeared in Europe about 40,000 years B.C.
It was around 7,000 B.C. that agriculture was developed: mainly the cultivation of wheat and barley and farming: the domestication of goats, sheep, cattle and pigs.
The first grouping of dwellings appeared, then larger and larger villages with their regional and social organizations and their customs and beliefs. Interaction with other populations increased and together these formed the first signs of a specific culture.
Now evolution started to move more quickly, especially with the invention of metalworking. Copper was found and used around 2,500 B.C. and bronze a thousand years later. It was 850 B.C. before working with iron began, later to become a specialty of the Catalans.
Civilization moved on and the first large built-up areas developed, for example Ruscino, today Château-Roussillon (from where “Roussillon" gets its name) and Illiberis which is now Elne.
But with all these riches came rivalry; with iron and steel came weapons and conquests and defeats followed.
History had begun.
