Revisiting the chronology of the Early Iron Age in the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

The chronology of the Late Bronze Age and the earliest stages of the Iron Age in the Mediterranean is an important topic of debate since the study of both local social dynamics and trade and colonial activity around the Mediterranean requires obviously well-established chronological frameworks. However, the exact chronology of the Early Iron Age in the Mediterranean region is still a problematic issue today since different, and in some cases unbalanced, sources of information (historical texts, material culture sequences, and radiocarbon dating results) are used. The NE Iberian Peninsula is not an exception and different time periods are proposed in the literature for the Early Iron Age. Here, and in order to provide a new and an independent input to feed this debate, we apply the archeomagnetic dating method to four archeological hearths from the Sant Jaume Complex, a set of several Early Iron Age archeological sites located in the north-eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula. The archeomagnetic dating results suggest that the abandonment of the studied structures (that can be linked to the abandonment of the archeological sites) most probably occurred before 650 BC, and therefore invalidate the age commonly ascribed to the Early Iron Age sites in this area. Our study provides, hence, new evidences that the traditional view of human settlement development in the NE Iberian Peninsula should be revisited.