Significant changes in technology and social organization occurred after 3200 bce. Skills in copper working were accompanied by a tendency to live in larger village communities. Differences in natural resources and population density meant that regions developed unequally, and centres of innovation are known all around the southern and southwestern coasts of Spain and Portugal. Particularly impressive is the settlement at Los Millares (Almería), which extends over five acres (two hectares) and is protected by triple walls of stone reinforced with towers at regular intervals. A formidable barbican with arrow slits and guard chambers projected from the gateway. Those defenses stretch over 330 yards (300 metres) and cut off a triangle of land high above the Andarax River, with a cemetery of more than 70 collective tombs lying just outside the walls. On the nearby hills, 10 or 15 smaller citadels watched over the natural approaches to the village. Modest dwellings lay inside, and an especially large building was used as a workshop to melt copper and to cast objects in simple molds; the metal wastes and crucibles show that pure copper and copper mixed with a small amount of arsenic as a hardening agent were regularly selected. Mines and copper-smelting slags of this date are known from the Alhamilla highlands, less than 12 miles (20 km) to the east. Smaller, undefended villages are known from El Barranquete and Almizaraque (Almería). The agricultural economy was based on growing wheat and barley, raising common domestic animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats, and probably tilling small areas of river bottomland, the only land plentifully watered in that arid region. Varied grave goods such as copper implements, personal ornaments, and decorated vessels for drinking and feasting (called bell beakers from their distinctive shape) indicate a stratified tribal society at Los Millares with marked inequality of riches and access to the good things in life. The defenses and multiple forts suggest social instability and the raiding and fighting that went with it. Similar villages and their megalithic tombs are known in the western outskirts of Sevilla (Seville), eastward at the Cabezo del Plomo (Murcia), and at Vila Nova de São Pedro and Zambujal north of Lisbon (Portugal).
Many Copper Age villages had been abandoned by 2000 bce, and Bronze Age settlement shifted to new sites, sometimes only a few hundred yards away. Steep hilltops were favoured for their inaccessibility, and in southeastern Spain the custom of burying people below the floors of their houses replaced the collective practices of the Copper Age societies. Social stratification is very marked at settlement sites such as El Argar and El Oficio (Almería), where the richest women were adorned with silver diadems while their male consorts were equipped with bronze swords, axes, and polished pottery. At Fuente-Álamo (Almería) the elite lived apart from the village, in square stone houses with round granaries and a water cistern nearby. Such customs were practiced with less intensity on the southern Meseta, where fortified hamlets known as motillas dominated a flat landscape. In eastern and northern Spain people did not live in villages at all but lived in hamlets such as Moncín (Zaragoza) or on isolated family farms such as El Castillo (Frías de Albarracín, Teruel). In the wetter regions of Spain and Portugal, along the Atlantic coast and the Bay of Biscay, so-called castros—small settlements fortified with a deep ditch and inner bank—arose, with a flourishing bronze industry linked to southern Britain and France and a custom of burying hoards of metal tools and weapons. Mining for copper ores was practiced at El Milagro and Aramo (Asturias), where the last miners abandoned their antler picks and levers deep in the underground galleries. Such differences in settlement patterns and customs indicate that Bronze Age Spain was not homogeneous but a social mosaic that included centralized tribal societies as well as looser associations based on smaller units. Such Bronze Age societies were prospering when Phoenician sailors reached Spain about 800 bce. Phoenicians
Venerable historical traditions recount the Phoenician voyages to found new cities. Utica, on the Tunisian coast of North Africa, was reputedly founded in 1178 bce, and by 1100 bce the Phoenician city of Tyre supposedly had a Spanish colony at Gadir (Cádiz). Although intriguing, such historical traditions are unsupported by evidence. Excavations confirm that the Phoenicians settled in southern Spain after 800 bce, shortly after the traditional founding of the greatest Phoenician colony, Carthage (now in Tunisia). Their search for new commodities led them ever farther westward and was the reason for their interest in southern Spain’s mineral wealth. The untapped lodes of silver and alluvial deposits of tin and gold provided essential raw materials with which to meet the increasing Assyrian demands for tribute. By 700 bce silver exported from the Río Tinto mines had become so abundant that it depressed the value of silver bullion in the Assyrian world. That is the background for Phoenician interest in the far west.
Phoenician commerce was conducted by family firms of shipowners and manufacturers who had their base in Tyre or Byblos and placed their representatives abroad. That accounts for the rich tombs of Phoenician pattern found at Almuñécar, Trayamar, and Villaricos, equipped with metropolitan goods such as alabaster wine jars, imported Greek pottery, and delicate gold jewelry. Maritime bases from the Balearic Islands to Cádiz on the Atlantic were set up to sustain commerce in salted fish, dyes, and textiles. Early Phoenician settlements are known from Morro de Mezquitilla, Toscanos, and Guadalhorce and shrines from Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar and the Temple of Melqart on the island of Sancti Petri near Cádiz. After the fall of Tyre to the Babylonians in 573 bce and the subjugation of Phoenicia, the early prosperity faded until the 4th century. Many colonies survived, however, and Abdera (Adra), Baria (Villaricos), Carmona (Carmo), Gadir (Cádiz), Malaca (Málaga), and Sexi (Almuñécar) thrived under the trading system established by Carthage for the central and western Mediterranean. Eivissa (Ibiza) became a major Carthaginian colony, and the island produced dye, salt, fish sauce, and wool. A shrine with offerings to the goddess Tanit was established in the cave at Es Cuyram, and the Balearic Islands entered Eivissa’s commercial orbit after 400 bce. In 237 bce, shortly after its defeat in the First Punic War, Carthage launched its conquest of southern Spain under Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal’s father, and founded a new capital at Cartago Nova (Cartagena) in 228 bce. After the death of Hamilcar, Hannibal continued Carthaginian expansion in Spain, reaching the Ebro River—the limit imposed by Rome in the settlement of the First Punic War. A diplomatic dispute over Seguntum, a Roman ally in Carthaginian Spain, led to the outbreak of the Second Punic War in 218 bce. Despite Hannibal’s invasion of Italy and near victory there, Carthage suffered a crushing defeat in Spain in 206 bce at the hands of Publius Cornelius Scipio (Scipio Africanus the Elder) and ultimately lost the war. Greeks
Greeks from Phocaea reached Spain’s shores, but by 575 bce they had established only two small colonies as offshoots of Massilia (Marseille) in the extreme northeast, at Emporion (Ampurias) and Rhode (Rosas). There was, however, an older Archaic Greek commerce in olive oil, perfumes, fine pottery, bronze jugs, armour, and figurines carried past the Strait of Gibraltar by the Phoenicians. It developed between 800 and 550 bce, peaking sharply from 600 to 550, and was directed along the southern coast in precisely the areas of most-intense Phoenician influence and settlement.