ABSTRACT
During the eighth and seventh centuries , communities of Phoenician origin arrived on the coast of Alicante (Spain) to create new settlements and to establish themselves in several indigenous sites. Very soon afterwards, indigenous groups moved to live in the new settlements as well. Like many other historical cases of contact and co-presence, these processes resulted in new social relations, the restructuring of existing identities and the appearance of new ones. ˆis chapter builds on aspects considered in other publications but broadens the
perspective in relation to the volume’s themes of mobility, materiality and identity. I begin by examining the phenomenon of the appropriation of material culture in situations of contact and co-presence associated with Phoenician trade in eastern Iberia. More specifically, I explore first how objects were used and perceived in the cemetery of Les Moreres (Crevillent, Alicante, Spain) and then move on to link these instances of usage to social changes in the domestic realm. I also touch on the material dimensions of identities in the broad social contexts of mobility, contact, conflict, co-presence and hybridisation. ˆroughout this chapter, I bring out the key idea, as outlined in the Introduction to this volume, that actions and perceptions were all inscribed in material culture.
