Early Bronze Age Colonists in Iberia

The object of this paper is to show that certain Early Bronze Age sites in the Iberian Peninsula are actually colonies established by people coming from the Eastern Mediterranean.The term ‘colony’ is used here in contrast to the term ‘culture’. It is selected because, besides being the term used by Siret, who believed that Los Millares was a Phoenician colony, and the Leisners (Factorei), it is the term which best describes these sites. The following account will demonstrate that they were solitary, heavily-defended settlements situated in a culturally foreign environment. Their best parallels are to be found in the East Mediterranean area, where, from very early times politically independent city states which owed their existence to either a rich hinterland or to trade and commerce, are known. These sites in the Peninsula may, in fact, be regarded as primitive examples of the types of colonies established later by the Phoenicians and the Greeks.