Introduction
We will make the most of the fact that the route goes through the middle of the village to explain that the origin of Els Hostalets de Pierola lies in the crossroads of the Cami Romeu (from Vilafranca to Montserrat) and the Cami Ral (from Igualada to Barcelona), which go through the village. Small hostels and service posts sprang up around the crossroads and later gave rise to a core of houses.
Palaeontological research at Els Hostalets started with the work of Jaume Almera (the founder of the Geology and Palaeontology Museum of the Seminary of Barcelona) towards the end of the 19th century. Marius Guerin and the priest Josep Ramon Bataller continued the research from the 1920s to the 1940s, and later on it was Miquel Crusafont and Josep Fernandez de Villalta's team that placed Els Hostalets on the international map of palaeontology. The finding of Pau in 2002 consolidated the village as an international palaeontological benchmark.
