Reassessing metal supply during the Early Iron Age at Can Roqueta (Sabadell, Barcelona): isotopic insights from pivotal and double-spring fibulæ

The archaeological complex of Can Roqueta (Sabadell, Barcelona), located in the Catalan Pre-Coastal Depression, comprises several activity areas, including the largest protohistoric funerary space in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula between Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. The extensive burial assemblages and artefacts unearthed provide an interesting and strategic means to study human mobility, commercial contacts and cultural interactions established by local communities during these transformative periods, marked by the influx of diverse Trans-Pyrenean cultural influences and the earliest trade connections with the Mediterranean world. This paper presents the results of an archaeometallugical study of the two most common types of bronze fibulæ from the site, used here to explore the consumption patterns and the demand for metal goods developed in this increasingly dissymmetric and changeable society.To this end, previous published archaeometric analysis were reassessed and compared with new geological database, and additional specimens were analysed through portable X-ray fluorescence elemental analysis (p-XRF), and lead isotope provenance analysis (MC-ICP-MS), within the framework of the “Arqueometalúrgia de la Península Ibérica” project. The achieved results outline a heterogeneous metal supply landscape, characterized by the convergence of different isotopic horizons, grouped into three major procurement areas operating at different scales: one regional and two more distant, located in southern France and southern Iberia. This phenomenon appears to reflect social and political changes in local communities parallel to the rising request for metal and the evolution of commercial networks.