THE FIRST SETTLERS
The strategic location of La Roca del Vallès, between the plain – with the Mogent River and the Camino Real – and the mountains – the Serralada Litoral, or Coastal Mountain Range, have made it a very important municipality in the history and defence of Catalonia.
Man first settled on the hills and in the valleys of the district during the Neolithic period. Hunter-gatherer communities occupied these lands because of their wealth of water resources (the Mogent and Congost rivers) and animal and plant life. The domestication of harvesting led to agriculture, and in a similar vein, hunting developed into livestock farming. The sedentary communities designated areas such as the necropolis (cemetery) and places of worship, within their territory.
The archaeological sites from the prehistoric period within the district of La Roca are among the most important megalithic groups in Catalonia. Thus, the Prehistoric Trail, an itinerary covering more than 6000 years, was established. The elements that comprise it are: The Dolmens of Can Gol, Can Planes, La Roca Foradada (the Hole Stone), la Pedra de les Creus (the Stone of Crosses), the Dolmen of Céllecs or Cabana del Moro and la Pedra de l’Escorpí (the Scorpion Stone).
The paintings of La Pedra de les Orenetes (the Stone of Swallows), discovered by Josep Estrada i Garriga in 1945 and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, stand out. They belong to the Chalcolithic period. You can see 32 figures of curved lines, points, female shapes, snake-shaped lines, cruciforms, bars, fingerprints, anthropomorphic figures, human representations and remains of pigment.
