Early Bronze Technology at Land's End, North Western Iberia

Abstract

The North Western Iberia metal ore wealth, especially tin ore and gold, have been proposed as the main reason for the development of intense trade routes since early prehistory. Several authors have argued the existence of interactions between the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and other cultures of the European Occident and the Mediterranean area. Ancient sources comment on the abundance of minerals and metals in the Cassiterides or Tin Islands. These accounts must have originated from sailors who from time immemorial were trading in these coasts. The name Cassiterides represents the first vague knowledge of the Greeks that tin was found overseas somewhere in or off Western Europe. The word κασσιτερΟζ was known to Homer and is mentioned ten times in the Iliad. Cape Finisterre (Land's End for the Romans) was proposed as the northernmost point recorded in the Periplous of Pytheas the Massaliot, which seems to be the basic source used by Rufus Festus Avienus. B. Cunliffe has suggested that if Cape Finisterre was the place called Oestrymnis by Avienus in Ora Marítima, then Periplous could be seen as the guide that led Greek sailors from Marseille to the northwest of Iberia to trade for the coveted Galician tin some time around 500 BC.Recently, the study of prehistoric bronze-working places more emphasis on technological aspects as a means of detecting changes in the pattern of metal production in the archaeological record. Bronze working appears in North Western Iberia at the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC for short-scale production, distribution and consumption, mainly as prestige goods. Metals are a major component of the prestige economy described in the Homeric Epics and Homer's accounts of Phoenician traders carrying metals hither and thither constitute the earliest literature reference. They suggest a prestige economy based in interchange of presents (most of them metals) that contribute to the perpetuation of the aristocracy, excluding ownership by the rest of the population.Recent preliminary analyses carried out at the synchrotron and the neutron sources at the Dares-bury and Rutherford Laboratories have contributed to the understanding of technological details of this very early bronze metallurgy. Archaeological evidence sustains the hypothesis of an increase of the production during the late Bronze Age. Most of these objects are produced locally, imitating foreign styles, especially in the Atlantic area, with singular features related to the alloy composition and other features. Indeed, as early as the beginning of the 8th century BC, the Phoenicians had established a trading post at Gadir. From here Phoenician ships regularly sailed north up the Atlantic coast of Iberia. We can observe differences between the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age metal production in the nortwest, the so-called tartessic bronzes. The technical aspects of the production of bronze during the Orientalising Period in the Iberian Peninsula favours the individualisation of different manufacturing traditions.