Mid-late Holocene environmental and cultural dynamics at the south-west tip of Europe (Doñana National Park, SW Iberia, Spain)

Abstract

A multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental study (pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, charcoal particles, mollusk macrofauna) of coastal marshland in Doñana National Park (southwestern Iberian Peninsula) was undertaken to trace environmental change, human activities related to woodland clearance, and past land-use during the midlate Holocene (~5000–2800 cal BP). The results of this study are combined with archaeological data from the Copper and Bronze Ages and are subsequently compared with those of similar research carried out at the southwesternmost part of Europe with the aim of discerning regional differences or similarities. Our research has allowed us to recognize climate changes and four extreme wave events in the Guadalquivir paleoestuary, which might have contributed to both the cultural change that is observed in the archaeological record at the end of the Chalcolithic and the subsequent population decline during much of the Bronze Age.