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Mercat de la Prehistòria de Moià

Població: Moià (El Bages)
Dates: 11-05-2008 / 11-05-2008
Època: Paleolític, Mesolític i Neolític
Pàgina web: http://www.covesdeltoll.com/cova_prehistorica.htm

This unusual initiative was born with the aim to draw prehistory nearer the general public in an entertaining way, allowing visitors to play with and manipulate primitive objects. The market takes place every spring around the prehistoric Coves del Toll (Puddle Caves), where a small Neolithic and Bronze Age park is set up with several huts and cooking, hunting and leather tanning utensils. For a weekend, visitors have a range of workshops and activities to do such as learning to hunt with arch and arrows, hut building, pottery making, leather patching, flint cutting or copper melting for axe making. Despite the presence of few folkloric elements -like a couple of giants embodying two Neolithic people-, this market is undoubtedly an event of remarkable interest and depicts a period infrequently seen in re-enactment.

 

Having enjoyed 10 editions, Moià Prehistory Market has become a paradigm for prehistory learning, as well as a meeting point for exchanging experiences among professionals, companies and institutions related to Catalan prehistory. Thus, since the earliest editions, lectures on prehistory have been organized with the presence of distinguished specialists such as Eudald Carbonell, Maria Àngels Petit, David Serrat, Jordi Rossell and Artur Cebrià, most of them narrowly linked to the excavations in the Caves and Toixoneres archaeology site.

 

In addition, the Market allows for a great variety of complementary activities to take place. The School Market, the Museums and Caves Encounter, lectures, exhibitions and plays, are just a few of them.

 

One such activity is the Prehistory School Market, running since 2002, which consists of several workshops addressed to scholars within the Caves' area. A complementary guided visit to the main cave is also available. The market has enjoyed a great number of visitors, with an average of 800-900 scholars registered yearly. In 2007 1.300 scholars and 73 teachers visited the Prehistory School Market.

 

In 2000, Maria Àngels Petit, wrote out a script for the theatre play "4000 Years Ago", in which lifestyle and habits of Catalan Neolithic ancestors were depicted. Nearly sixty people including actors, extras and technicians engaged in the performance. Similarly, in 2005, a short burial ceremony was performed on the official unveiling of a dolmen replica on a nearby roundabout.

 

Over the years other activities have also been carried out. Here are some examples: Prehistory Week at Moià's library; prehistory exhibitions on different topics; guided visits around Moianès County to learn about prehistory ceramics; hut building demonstrations; natural cloth dying and also pottery cooking displays using Neolithic technology.