Human settlement has taken place in what is now Catalonia since the distant past. Many peoples with their different cultures have had a presence in this area as it is necessary to pass through the region when travelling between the Iberian peninsula and central Europe.

There are numerous examples of remains from the Lower Palaeolithic period, with the most important being those remains found in Aragon and in the River Ter terraces. There is also abundant evidence of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic as well as the Epipalaeolithic, the final long period of hunter-gatherer societies. The Neolithic revolution reached Catalan land in the sixth century before our period.

Over time, domestication of farm animals and agriculture changed the land. The Bronze Age is the last prehistoric period for which we have evidence in Catalonia. From the seventh century BC on, the bronze civilisation came into contact with the colonised world. The historic, as opposed to prehistoric, period began in Catalonia with the development and flowering of the Iberian civilisation.