The last twenty years of archaeological research have completely transformed the traditional view of Tartessos. Excavation work at the Casas del Turuñuelo site, in Guareña (Badajoz), has uncovered a bronze chariot from the 5th century BC with a structure and decoration absolutely unprecedented in the Iberian Peninsula. According to the initial interpretations of the research team, the only parallels for a piece of this kind are found in ancient Etruria, in present-day Italy, from where it could have originally come. The discovery confirms that it was a complex civilization connected with the great powers of the Mediterranean, which inhabited the southwestern peninsula between the 8th and 5th centuries BC.