At the end of the 60s, a resident of Queralbs (Ripollès) discovered the cave of the Roc de les Orenetes, a prehistoric necropolis located at 1,860 meters above sea level, but it was not until August 1973 that the first emergency intervention was made. It was in charge of the Grober Xaialsa Group, an organization set up by friends of the Vall de Ribes to promote the socialization of science. At the head of these works was theEudald Carbonell, who led an excavation for the first time and who, since 2019, has been co-directing the excavation campaigns, which this year have focused on continuing the exploration of the cave. now, the exhibition ’50 years of Roc de les Orenetes’, which opens this Friday in Queralbs, commemorates the anniversary.
From July 11 to 31, an IPHES-CERCA team carried out a new archaeological excavation campaign at the Roc de les Orenetes site in the municipality of Queralbs (Ripollès, Girona). It is a sepulchral cave located at 1,860 meters above sea level, which was used between the Chalcolithic and the Ancient Bronze Age (between 4,400 and 4,000 years before the present). In fact, it is thecollective burial of the highest height in the entire Pyrenees. Current archaeological work is focused on continuing with a depth survey of approximately 3 square meters and more than a meter deep to check the sedimentation potential of this 25 square meter cave.
The discovery of Roc de les Orenetes became a landmark of international interest in the academic world of European prehistory because, inside, a prehistoric necropolis was documented with almost fifty individuals in an exceptional state of preservation. At that time, the work focused on recovering the remains that were deposited on the surface.
After more than 50 years, the excavations resumed again in 2019 and are still active under the direction of Eudald Carbonell himself, professor of prehistory at Rovira i Virgili University and researcher at IPHES-CERCA and Dr. Carles Tornero, researcher assigned to the same research center as part of the ARRELS research project Prehistoric roots of transhumance in Alt Ripollès” of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia.
In the last excavation campaigns it has been possible to verify the magnitude of the funeral depositwith the recovery of thousands of human remains as well as fragments of ceramic vessels, bronze garnish objects and several arrowheads.
In order to commemorate the more than 50 years since its discovery, IPHES-CERCA and Queralbs Town Council, with the collaboration of the Ethnographic Museum of Ripoll and the Museum of Archeology of Catalonia-Girona, have organized the exhibition ’50 years of the Roc de les Orenetes’which will remain open to the public at Sala Puigmal de Queralbs between August 5 and September 4. The opening ceremony will be this Friday, August 5, at six in the afternoon, and will have the assistance of Eudald Carbonell and the team of archaeologists who participated in the first excavation, in 1972.
The exhibition, structured from three modules, aims to take a historical tour of the research in the site, from its discovery at the end of the 60s of the last century to the present day.