The conference presented the precepts on which the exhibition of the same name is based. Based on archaeological data and its reading, even re-reading, it will be explained how the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula is a point of contact, of confluence, between two different cultural spheres from the Final Bronze Age to late antiquity, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. These currents, together with intrinsic processes generated by the indigenous populations of these lands themselves, will end up conferring unique characteristics to the culture of the Galaic people.

The site of Los Castillejos de Alcorrín has been studied since 2007 by a team led by Dirce Marzoli and made up of researchers from the German Archaeological Institute, the Centre for Phoenician and Punic Studies and the municipality of Manilva, from an interdisciplinary perspective. The location, size and size of its fortifications, as well as its good state of preservation, make Los Castillejos de Alcorrín a particularly promising site for the study of the first contacts between indigenous and Phoenician populations in the context of the Strait of Gibraltar in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. Its strategic position, the exceptional dimensions of this agglomeration and the complexity of its double walled enclosure are evidence of a high concentration of power. With a surface area of 13 hectares and a wall more than 2,000 m long, it is the largest known fortified settlement in the eastern confines of the Tartessian cultural area. From this site access was controlled to a mineral-rich hinterland, north of the mouth of the Guadiaro River where a Phoenician settlement was founded near Casa de Montilla (San Roque, Cádiz), precisely when the settlement of Los Castillejos de Alcorrín was founded.

Peña Negra is one of the main protohistoric sites in the southeast, with a wide sequence from the end of the 10th century BC to the third quarter of the 6th century BC, having been identified with the city of Herna cited in the sources. The site was excavated between the 1970s and 1990s. In 2014, research was restarted, which has made it possible to analyse the transformations of this indigenous nucleus, with new data on the urban planning and ancient topography of the orientalising city, largely due to the direct contact with the Phoenician populations settled at the mouth of the Segura River, making it one of the main sites on the peninsula for analysing the interaction between both ethnic groups.