Phoenicians and native people in Tartessos. Reflections concerning the colonial relationship and change in the S.W. of the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

Phoenician colonization during the VIIIth and VIIth centuries B.C. is perceived economically as based on long/ distance trade and unequal exchange. This has further implications on social -though not cultural- change in the Late Bronze Age village communities in the S.W. of the Iberian Peninsula, given the local elite's dependence on those relations and the economic destructuration which they brought about. The importance of metalworking is discussed. We comment on the Phoenician presence inland, in contrast to the coastal settlements, as a way of understanding better the strong orientalizing acculturation observed in archaeological data (burial evidence).