Gosner & Hayne/Local Experiences, 8. A Shotgun Wedding? Culture Mixing as Phoenician Mercantile Strategy

Our paper examines the evidence for rapid hybridization that marks the earliest phases of Phoenician presence in the Bay of Cadiz in c. 800-600 BC. As early as 700 BC, we argue, a local culture had already appeared that was no longer Phoenician or Iberian, but already gadirita. To support this, a wide array of evidence is examined, including ceramic production, domestic and funerary architecture and consumption patterns, as well as genetic data. Drawing on postcolonial thought and direct historical analogies from other Semitic cultures, we suggest that the social developments in the Bay of Cádiz were not just side effects of culture contact, but part of an intentional strategy of cultural mixing that was deployed by Phoenicians as a means of improving their economic prospects in the Iron Age Bay of Cadiz.