The long and winding road: Object biographies and cultural encounters in the Western Mediterranean during the Late Iron Age

Abstract

In this paper we address the biography of a set of copper nails recovered in 1998 from a Late Iron Age structure located at the archaeological site of Puig de Sa Morisca (Mallorca, Spain). The archaeometric and typological analyses conducted on these nails allowed us to relate them to nautical technology, as well as to approach the origin of the raw materials and the production processes involved in their manufacture. The biographical information obtained from these studies has been crucial to address the extensive mobility of these copper nails through the Western Mediterranean during the Iron Age, as well as to approach their fluid nature and association with different communities of practice, assemblages and appropriation phenomena.