Whatever else can be said about making an analogy between the coming of iron to the Mediterranean basin sometime between when we want to say that the Late Bronze Age collapsed (1171BC?) and when the classical age began (490BC?) and to the Northwest coast, we can at least be very sure of things like when iron came to northern Vancouver Island, what locations were inhabited and the languages spoken there, and the tribal ethnicity claimed by the grandchildren of the people who first encountered iron (to be maximally careful).
The modern band councils are the Kwakuitl Nation of Fort Rupert, a suburb of Vancouver, which chooses to use an older rendering of the ethnic name Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw, understandably enough in my opinion but I'm just an old fart, and the Namgis Nation of Alert Bay, also speakers of Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw and perhaps a bit indifferent to the larger tribal identification. Of perhaps more importance is the traditional territories of the two nations, which are, respectively, spread along Quatsino Sound on the west coast, and the extended estuary of the Nimpkish River on the east coast of the Island. Both nations may be described as "migratory" in that they moved through their respective territories harvesting seasonal abundances in various littoral environments, and both had "capitals," at Quatsino in the narrows of that Inlet, which is a flat and fertile landscape suitable for camus beds, a rarity in the region; and on Alert Bay, where unlike on the more fluvial terrains of this very wet part of the world, you didn't have to worry about waking up to find your bed floating out to sea. Both peoples commanded passages across the island, respectively the narrows between Coal Harbour and Port Hardy, and the long portage up the Zeballos River and down the Nimpkish, ultimately from the bight of Nootka Sound, commanded from Nuchulnath-speaking Ahousat.
In contrast it is necessary to speak with great caution about the earliest phases of the Iron Age in the Mediterranean, in part because so much of it is so implausible. That is, we have been waiting for evidence that the earliest region affected by Phoenician connections was the southwest of Spain at the other end of the Mediterranean from the territory of these Israeli, Lebanese, and Syrian cities; and that the influence of Greek culture was first wielded (in the Iron Age) by one or both of the classical cities of the island of Euboea off the coast of Boeotia, cities which, afterwards, receded into obscurity as second-, or third-rate powers by Greek standards.
Nevertheless, with centuries of archaeology under our belts by this point, we are unable to reject the priority of Huelva or ignore the wide dispersal of Archaic Euboean pottery. Reversing my way into the question, I propose to problematise it by invoking the Northwest comparison.
Maybe this makes more sense with a map:
Euboea is a long and narrow island hugging the coast of Greece, with a narrow sea passage separating it from the mainland --less than 100m opposite the modern town of Eretria. It is noteworthy for the magnitude of the tides through the passage, unusual for the Mediterranean, and that's it. Really, that's my point about Euboea. A high tidal range means a large intertidal zone, while a strong race increases sediment deposition. Euboea means "Happy Oxen," and the pastures of the central island are obviously rich. Tidal beaches are not so pleasing to the eye, but are very productive of grazing and other resources nonetheless. Greek traditional cuisine is at least as much about seafood as any other coastal culture, but they are not known as aficionados of the kind of stranger intertidal treats known in seriously beachcombing cultures. Euboea's internal channel looks like heaven for filter feeders and the local table would be ignoring some delicious options if it did not look to shellfish at least. Fortunately for one's waning faith in our species' basic rationality, this does not seem to be the case. There is even some effort being made to enshrine the Euboean date mussel as some kind of protected Eurofood thingamingy, although the effort's website seems to have been hacked and I don't know what that tells you about anything. but are not has although I'm going to come back and worry the point a bit further in a moment.
Huelva, on the other hand, begs sailing directions. I've expressed puzzlement before about just how early the west of England was sending ships directly to the Levant. Does it make sense in terms of winds and currents to make a passage to Ushant, then Gibraltar, and then the Levant rather than engage on shorter legs and cabotage? Well, no, unfortunately it doesn't. On the other hand, modern sailing guides recommend dallying in the Aegean on the way from Beirut to Gibraltar, but then making a straight haul from Sicily to Gibraltar on the grounds that there's nowhere worth stopping along the way. If Carthage really had been settled at the time of the fall of Troy (so that Dido and Aeneas can have a doomed affair), we might have a story here, but this early seems most unlikely. Carthage now seems to be the traditional two generations older than Rome (or Alba Longa if you want to go that way), whose canonical 753BC founding date is now greeted with a shrugged "Sure, whatever" by scientific archaeologists. Huelva can hardly be younger than the 875--850BC period, with arguments still being made for the Biblically-correct 1015BC. The Biblical dating is hard to take seriously from multiple lines of attack, and the mystery of its early establishment may be explained by its salt fish exports.
Okay, put this aside for a moment. Where is Huelva, apart from an identifying coloured blotch in the far southwest of Spain? It is an urban region set smack between the estuaries of the Tinto, with an average discharge of 35,000 cu metres per second[perhaps here], and the Odiel, whose discharge I do not conveniently find, but which is said to be greater than that of the Tinto. These are, then, two significant local rivers, and together they create a larger littoral environment known as the Gulf of Cadiz.
This post is heavily based on Tamar Hodos' Archaeology of the Mediterranean Iron Age, so in lieu of whining about the heavy use of catchphrases related to "complexity" and "globalisation," I should straight up recognise what Hodos does well, and that includes a survey of early Iron Age maritime archaeology. I can confess to be amazed by the number of shipwrecks now found, and struck by the contrast with the still slim pickings for the Late Bronze Age. One of the striking things about the finds is that the earliest phases of Iron Age "connectivity" are furnished with the largest proportion of larger, long-range ships with heavy ceramic loads. It was only later that inshore vessels with smaller pottery loads become common. Thus the earliest phases of the expansion were more entrepeneurial, long range, and presumably directed.
Okay, why? In my youth, members of the Kwakiultl Band still seasonally occupied fishing camps along the shores of Nerotsis Inlet around Port Alice. (Which were deemed to be horrifying and terrifying liminal locations of otherness by the White-identifying youth of the town. Parochial racism for the win!) I used "migratory" in my introductory paragraph, but let's not get too fancy. Namgis people clammed along the mouth of the Nimpkish when the clamming beds weren't underwater. There was no point in being at Camp Six when the Colonial River salmon run wasn't on.
So here's my suggestion: The locations initially settled in the Iron Age expansion, all those easily defended promontories and islands, were also dry locations within wet environments. We see more people and more activity there, and it is an indication of more aggressive exploitation of the surrounding estuarine lands, whether that be the Euboean channel, the Bay of Naples, or wherever.
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