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.
HistoryLab
for Civic Engagement
HistoryLab
for Civic Engagement
9. Travels and travelers: economic, social and cultural connections.
The project “La ruta de las Estrímnides: comercio mediterráneo e interculturalidad en el Noroeste de Iberia” (HAR2015-68310-P) has aimed, on the one hand, at the historiographic review of the ancient and modern literature on the Casitérides, and, on the other hand, at the study of the archaeological record of Phoenician origin found in the castros of northern Portugal and Galicia.
We can conclude that knowledge of the Cassiterides dates back to the Archaic period, as the place where the tin that the Phoenicians traded in came from. Traces of this trade can be analysed through the Phoenician emporia in Portugal and the inland routes through the Meseta. However, from the end of the 5th century BC until the Roman period, Gadir (Cadiz) monopolised the tin trade through the direct and systematic presence of its traders in the Galician forts.
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.
This work presents the results of the scientific study of the great megalithic tomb of Montelirio (Castilleja de Guzmán, Seville), excavated between 2007 and 2010. The exhaustive research carried out over almost 10 years, involving 45 specialists from 16 universities and research centres in five different countries (Germany, Spain, the United States of America, New Zealand and the United Kingdom) has included the deployment of some of the most cutting-edge research methods and techniques in modern archaeology. Taken together, the results reveal one of the most fascinating and enigmatic prehistoric monuments on the European continent, in which a mostly female collective of people were buried, accompanied by unparalleled grave goods including objects unseen anywhere else in the world, such as sophisticated robes made from tens of thousands of perforated beads and ornaments of shell, ivory and amber. The innumerable details revealed by the painstaking research undertaken bring us closer in previously unknown detail to the way of life of Copper Age societies (c. 3200-2300 BCE), and in particular to their technology, craftsmanship, patterns of contact and exchange, social organisation and worldview. With this study, Montelirio joins the select group of ‘classic’ megalithic monuments of Andalusian, Iberian and European Recent Prehistory, confirming the cultural and social emergence of the lower Guadalquivir valley in the third millennium B.C.E., the true genesis of the development process of the city of Seville.
Since the end of the 19th century, a hundred and a half warrior stelae have been discovered and numerous studies have been published on them. But there are still many unknowns to be solved. This conference presents the results of recent research, carried out in collaboration with various teams, in which new approaches and cutting-edge technologies have been applied to the study of warrior stelae, and their finding sites, from different areas of the western Iberian Peninsula. The new data contribute to clarify some questions about the meaning and functionality of the stelae, while revealing interesting aspects of their biographies.
The circulation of copper in the western Mediterranean between 1500 and 500 BC reflects a great complexity due to the different interactions that take place in this period in an area that acts as a point of contact between the Atlantic world and the eastern Mediterranean. The local populations of Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula are influenced by the commercial interests of Phoenician colonial expansion, of which metal is a fundamental part. However, these local commercial interests have more of a social than an economic dimension, which explains why products such as copper, which they themselves produce, form part of the exchange. The presence in Sardinia of other types of metal that are neither local nor Cypriot, and whose origin must be sought in other areas, connects with the debate on the relations between Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula.
Porto Maior (As Neves, Galicia) is currently the oldest dated archaeological site in Galicia, with a chronology of the main occupation levels between 312,600 and 210,700 years ago. Of particular importance is level PM4, dated to around 210,000 years ago, as it is the only European case of an occupation level characterised by an extensive anthropic accumulation of large Acheulean bifaces and cleavers. This type of occupation scenario was exclusive to the African continent and the Near East, and its recognition in Porto Maior provides a key reference to prove a close relationship between the Iberian and African Acheulean.
Between the 5th and 3rd millennium BC, Western Europe was the scene of a strong production and circulation of objects (necklace beads, bracelets, axes…) made of stones of an intense green colour, such as variscite or jadeite. From their sources of origin – located in different parts of the Iberian Peninsula (Barcelona, Huelva, Zamora…) and Europe (Italian Alps) – these objects travelled by land and sea over hundreds or even thousands of kilometres. In this conference, we will explore the manufacturing contexts of these pieces and how they spread to reach human groups in different parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe. We will also discuss the possible reasons why these greenstone objects were so appreciated by the Neolithic communities of our continent.
This paper deals with the history of research on the Greek presence in Iberia during the 20th century. It analyses the historical idealism and what we could call the philological archaeology of the works of Schulten, Obermaier, Carpenter and Bosch Gimpera in the first half of the century, the great figure of García y Bellido, the positivist archaeology of the 1960s and 1970s, led by Gloria Trías, the new excavations carried out in the 1980s, and the new approaches of the 1990s, in which an attempt is made to reconstruct the history of this process from the point of view of the consequences that this commercial action had on the economic, social and political development of the communities involved in the exchange with the Greek world.
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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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