Holocene woodland history of the Sierra de Ayllón (central Spain)

Abstract

Integration of a diverse set of data from pollen, wood, macrofossils and dendrochronological studies from the Sierra de Ayllón, a mountainous region in central Spain, enables one of the most complete palaeoecological vegetation reconstructions for almost the whole Holocene on the Iberian Peninsula. Previously, the absence of pollen data for the early Holocene in the eastern part of the Sistema Central mountains had been a gap in the information needed for correctly reconstructing palaeoenvironmental change there. Our pollen study on the Valdojos site finally allows this issue to be resolved. This analysis highlights the crucial role played by pine woodlands throughout the first half of the Holocene in this region. The importance of the pine woods in the region enables us to show the clear difference in vegetation between the western and eastern parts of the Sistema Central mountains for the early to mid Holocene. Moreover, the Fagus pollen found at Valdojos, dating to ca. 7,000–6,600 cal years BP, is the oldest beech record for the central and eastern part of this chain of mountains during the Holocene. This supports the hypothesis of the existence of beech refuges in the Sistema Central for this time span. Furthermore, we used the tree-ring series from the Pinus cf. sylvestris subfossil wood from the Sandria site to extend the previous data from the Sierra de Ayllón to almost the entire Holocene. This tree-ring record is the most complete data set from the Iberian Peninsula and southern Europe and it also provides data on some aspects of the palaeoenvironment.