The Ceretan territory has received by far the most attention from both projects. Our team’s experience of more than 35 years in the region makes the Cerdanta landscape the best known of all those we investigate and, for the same reason, the paradigmatic case from which we draw lessons for the development of our research in other territories.
History of interventions and developments
The research of the territory has gone through several stages of work: the analysis of the resources and productive forms of the Ceretan world and its integration into the Roman orbit, the participation in international projects of heritage dissemination, the creation of the Ceretània Space – a museum interpretation centre dedicated to the study of the Cerdanya in Antiquity (2012-2021) -, and finally the celebration and publication of the two congresses. ArqueoPyrenae linked to the study of the ancient Pyrenees.
The passage through these stages has marked a significant development in our knowledge of the Ceretan world, developed through excavations at the sites of Castellot de Bolvir, Tossal de Baltarga and Serrat del Castellar. These have proven that since the early moments of the IV century BC The Ceretan world presents the characteristics of the Iberian societies of the NE, such as settlement in oppida, the spread of the Iberian language, and a complex agricultural economy. The latter involved the creation of strong territorial control points, structured around the course of the Segre to control the agricultural territories of the plains.
Among these points, we can highlight the aforementioned Tossal del Baltarga, where the identification and extensive excavation of Building G, together with the results obtained in previous campaigns in buildings F and D, have allowed us to locate several stables with the animals preserved in situ inside them. which have made it possible to reconsider the complexity of the agricultural activity practised in the region. Also worthy of mention, among these control points, is the site of Castellot de Bolvir: the work carried out was the first to document an oppidum in the Pyrenees. These, together with our ongoing work at Tossal de Baltarga, Serrat del Castellar de Urtx, and the other sites that are currently being surveyed, have enabled us to document and study for the first time the characteristics of the ceretan oppida its evolutions, and changes; and to do so on an a continous basis. The promotion of this extension work will allow us not only to learn about the forms of urban organisation of these communities, identifying their diverse productive activities and ways of life, but also to analyse their changes over the course of the ancient period.
The presence of Roman military garrisons has also been documented in the territory, linked to the control of the trans-Pyrenean road axis, the Narbo-Ilerda axis, which runs along the course of the rivers Tet and Segre, and the exploitation of agricultural and mineral resources – especially metallurgical resources. In this context, a key element in the process of conquest and Romanisation was the re-foundation of the city of Iulia Livica, now Llívia, in what had previously been a Ceretan settlement.
In addition to having found vestiges of Roman garrisons, the levels of destruction of the Tossal de Baltarga documented around 230 B.C., together with the monetary group of drachmas found in the region and the monetary group found by ourselves in Baltarga, allow us to speak of the destruction of several Ceretan sites in the context of warfare at the end of the 3rd century and the beginning of the 2nd century B.C. We associate these with Hannibal’s famous passage through the Eastern Pyrenees, described in literary sources. The region was also the object of battles such as that of Ilerda (49 BC), documented in the destruction in the Republican phase of the Tossal de Baltarga and Serrat del Castellar, as well as the abandonment shortly afterwards of the Castellot de Bolvir.
Actions and objectives
We want to develop a new line of research, focusing especially on the role of the Roman roads in the structuring of the Pyrenean territory, undoubtedly linked to the network of cities and the exploitation of resources – which we already know about thanks to our past activity. Phenomena such as track layout, stopping and control points, as well as the study of import and export products, will be the main subject of study in future interventions. Thanks to them, we hope to deepen our knowledge of the relational framework in which economic and social activity developed in the Ceretan valley.
Our forthcoming work also aims to develop different applied heritage research projects that will enable the valorisation and profitability of those assets that are likely to be put to good use through their adaptation and/or museumisation. With this in mind, we are collaborating with the company Stoa in the reformation of some of the contents of the musealisation of the site of Castellot de Bolvir. We also took part in the genesis of the “Information, Interpretation and Research Centre of the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, where we
participated in the museumisation of the Tossal de Baltarga site (again in collaboration with the company Stoa).
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