Middle and late Holocene vegetation history of the Murcia region from a new high-resolution pollen sequence from the Mar Menor Lagoon

Julien Azuara (1) , Vincent Lebreton (1) , Laurent Dezileau (2) , Angel Pérez-Ruzafa (3) , Nathalie Combourieu-Nebout (1)

1 HNHP - Histoire naturelle de l'Homme préhistorique
2 M2C - Morphodynamique Continentale et Côtière
3 Universidad de Murcia

South-Eastern Spain is a particularly suitable area for studying the impact of human societies on their environment. We present a new high resolution and continuous pollen sequence from the coastal lagoon of Mar Menor in the Murcia region. This new sequence covers the last 6500 years, from the end of the Neolithic to the present period, with a robust chronological framework (17 radiocarbon dates). The history of vegetation obtained from pollen data is studied in parallel with a proxy of mining activity in the watershed of the same lagoon to disentangle the influence of human activities and climate change on the vegetation of this part of the Iberian Peninsula. While the influence of past climate variability on the vegetation in the Murcia region remains difficult to perceive, the data show a very clear concomitance between changes in the archaeological record and changes within plant communities.- Important deforestation and changes in herbaceous communitites during the Argar period (early Bronze Age)- Changes in the thermo-Mediterranean shrub communities in relation with the very important pastoral practices.- Major vegetation changes linked with mining and agricultural activities during the Roman period.- Impact on the regional vegetation of agricultural practices evolution between the 18th and the 19th Centuries.The results obtained provide valuable indications for assessing the resilience of thermo-Mediterranean coastal plant communities to anthropogenic environmental changes.

Mots clés: Palynology; Coastal lagoon; Vegetation changes; Human impact Resilience; Ecological succession; Argar period; Classical Antiquity Historic period; Lead concentration; Mining activities; coastal lagoon; vegetation changes; human impact; resilience; ecological succession; Classical Antiquity; Historic period; lead concentration; mining activities

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire; Sciences de l'environnement

Julien Azuara, Vincent Lebreton, Laurent Dezileau, Angel Pérez-Ruzafa, Nathalie Combourieu-Nebout. Middle and late Holocene vegetation history of the Murcia region from a new high-resolution pollen sequence from the Mar Menor Lagoon. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020, 31, pp.102353. ⟨10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102353⟩. ⟨hal-02569012⟩