ORIGINAL ARTICLE The late Holocene palaeoecological sequence of Serranı ´a de las Villuercas (southern Meseta, western Spain) Graciela Gil-Romera Æ Mercedes Garcı ´a Anto ´n Æ Juan A. Calleja Received: 20 December 2006 / Accepted: 28 December 2007 / Published online: 28 February 2008 Ó Springer-Verlag 2008 Abstract New pollen results and radiocarbon dating from a valley mire in south-western Spain are presented. This is a region where few palaeoecological records have been preserved and the sequence yields important new palaeo- botanical evidence for the late Holocene. The landscape is shown as having been largely open woodland, but more wooded than at present. The vegetation history of the last four millennia in these montane territories of south-western Iberia is discussed in the light of anthropogenic indicators, archaeological and documentary archives; fire incidence and climate change. Alnus is the predominant pollen type, although a decline is noted during the last couple of cen- turies. Its presence is connected with local topography behaving as a phreatophyte, that is, a plant which obtains a significant amount of water from the zone of saturated soil. A framework is also provided for the age and ecological dynamics of some major woodland taxa—Betula, Corylus, Ilex, evergreen and deciduous oaks, Ericaceae and Pinus. In addition, the natural status of several pollen taxa and local trends in biodiversity are discussed. We consider that the results of our work will have important implications for the understanding of the vegetation history in a floristically very rich area, with a noticeable diversity of woody taxa, and a relatively well preserved ecosystem structure. Keywords Palynology Á Late Holocene Á Western Iberian Peninsula Á Woodland Á Human landscapes Introduction Western Iberia, and especially its south-western regions, remains largely unexplored from a palaeoecological per- spective (Stevenson 1984, 1985a, b; Stevenson and Moore 1988; Stevenson and Harrison 1992; Julia ` et al. 1994; Martı ´nez-Atienza 1999), while the northern, central and eastern regions are relatively well represented by a number of Quaternary pollen analyses (Aira et al. 1992; Riera- Mora and Esteban-Amat 1994; Carrio ´n 1992; Carrio ´n et al. 1995, 1999, 2001; Burjachs and Julia ` 1996; Gil Garcı ´a and Toma ´s Las Heras 1996; Garcı ´a Anto ´n et al. 1997; Yll et al. 1997, 2003; Franco Mu ´gica et al. 1998, 2001, 2005; Ramil Rego et al. 1998; Carrio ´n and Van Geel 1999; Dorado Valin ˜o et al. 2002; Ruiz Zapata et al. 2002; Pe ´rez-Obiol and Yll Aguirre 2002; Pantaleo ´n Cano et al. 2003; Mun ˜oz Sobrino et al. 2005, 2007; Gil Garcı ´a et al. 2007). Given the scarcity, or almost complete absence of data from the southwest, the recovery and analysis of new records is urgently needed (Martinez Atienza 1999). In this context, we provide here a new Holocene pollen record from south-western Iberia (Fig. 1). The work by Martı ´n- Arroyo et al. (1996) and Martı ´n-Arroyo (1998) in El Puente del Arzobispo (380 m a.s.l., Toledo, Spain), a non-con- tinuous pollen sequence spanning ca. 14000–370 B.P. is the nearest to our site. Here, the early presence of Castanea is significant in this work, since the current vegetation in the area is mainly formed by evergreen and deciduous Quercus which indicates a possible refugium for this taxon during the Last Glacial Maximum. The upper part of the record shows open woodland caused by various processes of woodland loss. The studies of Van der Knaap and van Leeuwen (1991, 1994, 1997) in Serra da Estrela (Portugal) and Atienza Ballano (1993) in Sierra de Be ´jar explore vegetation Communicated by J.-L. de Beaulieu. G. Gil-Romera (&) Á M. Garcı ´a Anto ´n Á J. A. Calleja Dpto. Biologı ´a (Bota ´nica), Universidad Auto ´noma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain e-mail: gmg@aber.ac.uk 123 Veget Hist Archaeobot (2008) 17:653–666 DOI 10.1007/s00334-008-0146-x