Murillo-Barroso, MDLM; Montero-Ruiz, I., I; Rafel, N., N; Hunt, M., M; Armada, XL; (2016) Macro-regional scale of silver production in Iberia during the 1st millennium BC in the context of Mediterranean contacts. Oxford Journal of Archaeology , 35 (1) pp. 75-100. 10.1111/ojoa.12079.

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Abstract

The extraction of silver has been traditionally considered one of the main incentives for the Phoenician expansion through the Mediterranean and their settlement in Iberia. In this paper we approach the organization of silver production in Iberia during the Early Iron Age through the study of productive evidence currently available and the development of Lead Isotope Analysis (LIA). Previous results (Hunt, 2003; Stos Gale 2001; Kassianidou, 1992) are considered in the light of new data. The extraction of silver from complex minerals is conspicuously intensified in Southwest Iberia. Imports of exogenous lead, needed for the extraction of silver from these complex minerals, stand out. Flows of lead come in from other Iberian regions such as Gádor, Cartagena/Mazarrón, Linares or even the mining district of Molar-Belmunt-Falset (MBF) in Catalonia. This picture reveals an organization of silver production much more complex than initially thought, with the needed articulation of an exchange network of raw materials at a macro-territorial scale embracing almost all Iberia. Socioeconomic implications that control of these distributions networks of lead could have had are also discussed.

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