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

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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.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the technical staff who have collaborated on the XRF, XRD and SEM-EDX analyses which were carried out in the Centres Científics i Tecnològics de la Universitat de Barcelona, and the thin sections prepared in the Laboratory of Geology of the University of Murcia. BCV would like to thank Veronica Testolini for facilitating his training at the University of Sheffield.

Funding

This work was made possible by funding from the ALAFMET: Alfarerías autóctonas y fenicias en el SE ibérico. Una mirada arqueométrica research project supported by Fundación PALARQ and was developed in the framework of the R&D&I research project HAR2017-85726-C2-1-P: Carthago nova: paleotopografía y evolución medioambiental del sector central del Sureste ibérico (ARQUEOTOPOS III), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This is also part of the activities of the Research Group on Archaeology of Complex Societies and Processes of Social Change, Universitat de Barcelona (ARQUB, GRACPE) (2017 SGR 1774).

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  1. Grupo de Investigación en Arqueología (E041-02), Facultad de Letras, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain

    Benjamín Cutillas-Victoria

  2. Cultura Material i Arqueometria UB (ARQUB, GRACPE), Dept. d’Història i Arqueologia, Facultat de Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

    Jaume Buxeda i Garrigós

  3. Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, National Centre for Scientific Research ‘Demokritos’, Athens, Greece

    Peter M. Day

  4. Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Peter M. Day

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  1. Benjamín Cutillas-Victoria
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Cutillas-Victoria, B., Garrigós, J.B.i. & Day, P.M. Technological change and cultural resistance among southeast Iberian potters: analytical characterisation of Early Iron Age pottery from Castellar de Librilla. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 13, 174 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-021-01433-x

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