Abstract
Discussions of Bronze Age trade are typically centered around developments in the Eastern Mediterranean, and as a result the west remains in relative obscurity until Phoenician colonization in the eighth century BCE. Recent archaeological evidence confirms seven centuries of contact between the inhabitants of Iberia and Eastern Mediterranean populations prior to the Peninsula’s colonization. This evidence not only suggests routine Mycenaean and Cypriot interaction on Iberia’s Atlantic coast, but confirms the existence of a flourishing maritime trade network that linked the British Isles and Eastern Mediterranean during the end of the second millennium BCE. As the center of that exchange network Iberia developed a prolonged relationship with Eastern Mediterranean populations that grew stronger the longer it continued. The effects of this relationship led to an increased valuation of eastern goods by the Iberians, who began incorporating these foreign elements into their culture to increase their own individual prestige. Seven centuries of embracing foreign culture in this manner culminated in the pre-colonization of Iberia, in which the region’s inhabitants were so accustomed to and enamored with the Phoenicians that they peacefully accepted colonization.