The emergence and formation of the Iberian society in the Vallès area: the Ancient Iberian phase in the “Laietània interior” (6th - 5th c. BC.)

In this paper we will show the evolution and characteristics of the several known settlements in the present-day area of El Vallès (the ancient “Laietania interior”) during the Ancient Iberian phase (6th-5th c. BC). It is a period characterised by the continuation of the evolution that had begun in this area in the Early Iron Age, with an increasingly hierarchical social, economic and territorial structure that would lay the foundations for the full development of Iberian Laietanian world in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C.

Keywords: Vallès, Ancient Iberian, social complexity, oppida, hierarchical structure of the territory.