La metalurgia del oro en la fachada atlántica Peninsular durante el Bronce Final: interacciones tecnológicas

Abstract

By studying gold artefacts from the Atlantic seaboard of the Iberian Peninsula in the light of the of the sociotechnical system elaborated by Pfaffenberger –technology and technique- it is proposed that when metallurgy began to develop and in part of the Bronze Age, the use of technology can only be detected on the Atlantic seaboard. From the Late Bronze Age on this, became diversified in a process of technological differentiation, which resulted in the emergence of two different cultural areas.

These technological spheres are described and characterised by taking the technical variables and thos fo the material culture, a distinction between the goldwork produced using a strictly indigenous technology (Sagrajas/Berzocana type S/B and Villema/Estremoz type V/E) and that produced using Mediterranean technology (imported).

A series of interactions can be established within that same geographic area in the Late Bronze Age, and three processes of reaction mechanisms can be identified: differentiation/co-existence/integration. Through these mechanisms the development of the technologies can be defined in relation to different forms of inter or intra-cultural contacts. Their combination may or may not give rise to a new technology and its transmission depends on whether contact was personal or through having seen the object.

The new technology of the Iberian Peninsula (V/E and Mediterranean technology) and the process of differentiation in the south between Tartessian orientalizing goldwork and colonial Phoenician goldwork produced in the Iberian Peninsula, trace in turn a line which could be compared with other areas of activity which have their own geographical and temporal points of reference.