Early Holocene vegetation in the Ayllón Massif (Central System Range, Spain) based on macroremains. A paleoecological approach

Abstract

We present a palaeoecological study of well-preserved vegetal macroremains in Spain, which age range (10,025–5371 cal yr BP) confers it an outstanding interest, because for the first half of the Holocene, palaeobotanical data are extremely scarce in the Iberian Central System Range. We found, for the first time in the easternmost zone of the Central System Range, macroremains belonging to the genus Pinus; these have specifically been identified as Pinus cf. sylvestris and Pinus gr. sylvestris. These findings provide valuable information on the role of the genus Pinus, regarding the natural character of these pine forests in this relatively unknown region.

In the larger wood samples we measured tree rings and cross-dated growth series, which represent a 75% increase in the number of floating fossil chronologies and increase the time span by almost 1750 years, in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula. Remarkably, this is the first time in Spain and in southern Europe that some of the floating chronologies have been successfully crossdated, creating four composite chronologies. Furthermore, we discuss some palaeoclimatic inferences comparing with different sites in southern Europe and provide new data for best knowing the palaeoecological characteristics of the first half of the Holocene in Spain. Likewise, we found two bones belonging to aurochs (Bos primigenius), one of these also dating from the first half of the Holocene, with Valdojos constituting the only site with this taxon for this period in the Central System Range and surrounding areas.