The Department of Culture of the Generalitat has initiated the procedure to declare the Iberian site of Puig Castellar a Property of National Cultural Interest (BCIN), in the category Archaeological Zone. Years ago the Santa Coloma de Gramenet City Council, the Institute of Catalan Studies and the Puigcastellar Excursionist Center asked for the town's inclusion in the catalogue.
The recovery of the site and its dissemination through the Museo Torre Balldovina, where a large part of the found materials are exhibited, will thus be reinforced with this legal figure of protection. Last August 14, the resolution was published in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat of Catalonia (DOGC) to initiate the BCIN declaration file in favor of the Iberian site of Puig Castellar, in Santa Coloma de Gramenet (Barcelonès North) and Montcada and Reixac (Vallès Occidental), with a public exhibition period of one month.
A working group made up of different City Council services, the Puig Castellar Excursionist Center and the Barcelona Provincial Council, the managing body of the Serralada de Marina, monitors the actions taking place at the site.
The Iberian village of Puig Castellar or "Chicken Hill" is an archaeological site that corresponds to a fortified village of the Iberian era dated between the 6th century BC and the 2nd century BC. It is located on the border between the municipalities of Santa Coloma and Montcada, at the top of a high hill about 303.10 meters above sea level, on the eastern side of the mouth of the Besòs River.
The town occupied an approximate area that slightly exceeded 5,000 m2 of which 4,500 m2 would have been excavated. The first excavations were carried out in the first third of the 20th century and continue, with some stoppages, to the present day.
Regarding the Iberian period, Puig Castellar can be considered an exceptional site for various reasons. In the first place, due to its extraordinary occupation, which covers a continuous archaeological sequence of more than three hundred years of history. Throughout the excavations, a total of four phases have been identified, ranging from the 6th century BC to the 2nd century BC, encompassing the genesis of Iberianism and the entire validity of the Iberian world until its disappearance within the process of Romanization. which shows us the importance of this site in the study of the Iberian communities of Laietania and the Catalan Iberian world.
The Iberian site exemplifies the diachronic model of urbanism of this culture, contrasted by its stratigraphy. It shows battery buildings, compartmentalized houses, common passageways, water pipes, walls, non-residential spaces for specialized use for possible community use, etc. It also includes the characteristic child burial rituals and other fauna rituals, as well as remains of buried human skulls.
The immovable vestiges provide clear stratigraphic sequences and the closed sets provide abundant testimonies of material, environmental and economic culture, contextualized and significant of historical moments.
Regarding material culture, archaeological work has made it possible to recover one of the most outstanding collections of Iberian materials in the country, pieces and objects, mostly ceramic, but also many others made of metal, deposited and exhibited mostly in the Torre Balldovina Museum. and also in the Museum of Archeology of Catalonia in Barcelona, through which it is possible to deepen the knowledge of the material culture of the Layetan Iberian world and the living conditions of the ancient inhabitants of this Iberian town.
