The arrival of the first Phoenician merchants and colonists in the Iberian Far West tipped off the delicate balance of the regional Late Bronze Age networks, setting in motion a far-ranging process which completely changed the socio-political landscape of Southern Portugal. However, the growing volume of available data seems to show that far from being a linear, straightforward process, the ensuing restructuration was complex and dynamic. In this contribution, it is argued that “traditional” models based on normative views of culture are no longer suited to explain the diversity of the archaeological record, and that new, more nuanced approaches are in order. It is suggested, in particular, that this diversity is the reflection of specific representation discourses in which “traditional” and innovative, often exogenous elements were combined according to variable, situational and socially negotiated identity discourses deployed on multiple levels, from the microregional context of inter- and inter-group interactions to the transregional, Mediterranean level.
Beyond the Indigenous/Phoenician divide: Spheres of Interaction and Scales of Integration in the Early Iron Age of Southern Portugal (8th–5th centuries BCE)