The use of absolute dating methods has taken longer to develop in Iberia than in many other parts of western Europe. When I submitted my doctoral dissertation in 1975, there were four times the number of published radiocarbon dates from France as from Iberia, while Italy (which is half the size of Iberia) possessed twice the number of dates. While there has been a notable number of dates published since 1975 (e.g. Almagro Gorbea and Fernández-Miranda 1978), there remain particular problems with their interpretation. Many sites are ‘dated’ by single determinations. Few, if any, areas can be claimed to have detailed absolute chronologies, although some finer subdivisions have become possible. For north-east Spain the details of a fifth- and fourth-millennium Neolithic sequence are becoming visible (e.g. Guilaine et al. 1982), as is also the case in Andalucía (e.g. Pellicer and Acosta 1982). Although Neolithic material outside of megalithic tombs is known from southern Portugal (e.g. Spindler 1981), there is no stratigraphic or absolute dating evidence for the development of Neolithic cultures in this area. For south-east Spain a series of Bronze Age dates are published for the Argaric culture, as we shall see below.

Caveats such as these are important if absolute dates are to be used to test some of the arguments of the traditional framework outlined in chapter 2.