"Ivory objects from the Iberian peninsula dated from the Chalcolithic at about 3000 BC [....] brought in by sea" [excavated from the metropolis of Los Millares in the south-east of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea] "revealed a majority of Asian ivory (Elephas maximus)", [but African ivory is not found here] "before the Early Bronze Age (end of the third and first half of the second millennium BC)" ... Whereas in Portugal are found a majority of African savannah elephant in the early chalcolithic, in south-eastern Spain on the contrary we cannot identify this type of ivory before the Early Bronze Age (end of the third and first half of the second millennium BC). So the analysis of ivory from various tombs from the metropolis of Los Millares revealed a majority of Asian ivory (Elephas maximus). The situation in south-western Atlantic Spain, on the other hand, coincides with the one in Portugal, where African savannah elephant ivory can be found in the Early Chalcolithic. This speaks for the existence of an Atlantic route of contact and exchange for the western part of the Iberian Peninsula already in the first half of the third millennium BC."
Ivory trade

January 1, 1970