## 4 Discussion  
Analysis of the pottery assemblage from Sant Jaume has produced compositional groups with some confidence, of which we have been able to suggest a provenance for six. The trends revealed from these ceramics, thought to be associated with Phoenician settlement and activities in the western Mediterranean, reveal some clear patterns in terms of space and time. Considering loners as potentially different groups (except those gathered together in the so-called group CG15), we have defined29 groups of wheel-made pottery, complemented by 3 groups of central Mediterranean Phoenician imports [23]. Six groups plus CG15, accounting for 28 individuals, originated in the Western Mediterranean Phoenician colonies of the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, in the coastal areas of Malaga, Granada, and Almeria, or the northern coast of Morocco (CGGUA, CGTOS, CGVEL-MAG, CG13, CG14, and CG15), and the island of Ibiza (CGEIV). The other 30 individuals account for the remaining 23 groups (groups CG21, CG10, CG17, and CG19, and 19 loners). The observed diversity in provenance provides further evidence of a complex commercial network involving a large number of pottery workshops from different geographical areas. In Figure 10, we can see that diversity is very high, with richness equal to 29, the number of groups defined, while evenness, the distribution of individuals in each group, is considered very high (\(H_{2}\) = 4.45 Sh, i.e., 91.63% of the total attainable). The high value of evenness reflects the absence of preferential consumption of goods from a single production centre, or even a small number of sources, emphasising the complex dynamic between a variety of centres, with no clear predominance of any particular Phoenician colony. There are clear indications of a large number of workshops in the south of the Iberian Peninsula that manufactured mainly amphorae; certainly, this area was the provenance most represented in transport jars at Sant Jaume, with the only significant exception being the CG10 group. It is difficult to determine more specific provenance for groups CG13 and CG14 and the outliers grouped within CG15 in that area of Andalusia (especially Malaga, Granada, and Almeria provinces), where archic Phoenician colonies were located, due to the occurence of the same geological units with similar compositional characteristics. Similarly, the geology of Morocco on its northeastern Mediterranean coast also shares similarities to that of Malaga/Granada, a problem not helped by the lack of analytical studies of pottery of this time period in Morocco, implying that we cannot rule out a north-African provenance for CG13 and CG14. Nevertheless, it has been possible to make clear distinctions between the Guadalhore Valley (West Malaga, group CGGUA) and the Velez Valley (East Malaga, group CGVEL-MAG) through chemical and mineralogical analyses, as well as to identify a group probably related to the Phoenician site of Toscanos (CGTOS). Although recent protographic and chemical studies of Phoenician pottery have been carried out in Andalusia [64; 72; 73], we are still far from having a complete picture. Future large  
Figure 10: Rank abundance graph of the 29 defined groups based on the 58 studied individuals. \(H_{2}\): information entropy (in Shanons, Sh); \(H_{2}\) %: percentage of the maximum possible attainable. analytical projects on the assemblages of Phoenician colonial sites are necessary to enhance the characterization of production units and provide crucial comparative data. Nevertheless, some interesting differences appear if we compare the consumption patterns revealed by the analyses with those of later periods. Although we have identified the importation of pottery vessels from Ibiza (group CGEIV), these are relatively rare in this early phase on the Catalan coast. This pattern changed drastically during the Punic period [74] when Ebussitan vessels were common in Catalan-Iberian sites. While it was not possible to suggest a provenance for most of the tripod mortars/vessels, they display great diversity.