Technological change and cultural resistance among southeast Iberian potters: analytical characterisation of Early Iron Age pottery from Castellar de Librilla

Abstract

The beginning of relationships between autochthonous communities and Phoenicians from the earliest contacts in the eighth century BC made possible the exchange of ideas, technologies and people. This work analyses the development of the Early Iron Age potteries of the Iberian Southeast, the impact of the Phoenician presence and the agency that these local groups exercised on their ceramic assemblages until the fifth century BC. The incorporation of new archaeometric data from Castellar de Librilla, one of the region’s main autochthonous settlements, has been essential to improve our approach to these cultural encounters. A total of 63 representative individuals have been analysed through X‐ray fluorescence (XRF), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), thin-section petrography and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results point to the local production of ceramics previously considered as Western Phoenician pottery, and to the degree of specialisation of the potters established in the autochthonous settlements, combining traditional and new techniques from early in the period of contact.