University of Alicante / Universidad de Alicante

Faculty Member, Departamento de Prehistoria, Arqueología, Historia Antigua, Griego y Latín

Ramón y Cajal Program

About

The main research line carried out so far is part of the studies on Punic culture and its influence on native Iberian societies with a particular interest in the complex processes of hybridization derived from that influence which can be inferred in funerary architecture. The relations between both societies, Punic and Iberian, have traditionally been interpreted from a theoretical standpoint premised on the so-called acculturation which segregates cultures into ‘advanced’ and ‘backward’. However, the topic is nowadays approached from a wider perspective which takes into account both the bidirectional dialectics established in cross-cultural contacts and the resulting ‘polyhedric’ reality. All these ideas draw on a panorama of theoretical renewal concerning Archaeology, with examples such as the so-called ‘postcolonial’ studies which in the Spanish context have already had a positive effect in the materialization of new analytical models for cultural contacts between Phoenicians, Punics, or Romans and Iberian societies.
The knowledge of Punic culture is thus considered today a key to understand many historical processes within Iberian societies, especially after the 3rd century B.C. In recent years, indeed, many new archaeological studies concerning cultural contacts and the construction of social identities in Iberia have revealed the importance of a better understanding of Mediterranean cultures such as the Punic.

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