The onset of islandscapes in the Balearic Islands: A study-case of Addaia (northern Minorca, Spain)

Paleoenvironmental and archaeological data show that Mediterranean landscapes result from long-term socio-environmental interactions. Mediterranean islands constitute a place of passage where the creation of cultural landscapes can be traced through colonization and anthropization histories. Palynological studies carried out in the Balearic Islands highlight a deep vegetation change from the mid- to late-Holocene, but the climate-environmental-human interactions are not fully understood yet. In this study, we aim to disentangle the causalities of landscape changes during the last six millennia using a multi-proxy approach on an off-site core for the first time in Minorca island. We find that, during the mid-Holocene, the climate was wetter than today with less rainfall seasonality than in the current Mediterranean. This climate, favoured the expansion of box formations and the predominance of forested formations with minimal anthropized conditions. First agropastoral activities appeared in the sequence between ca. 3500-2650 cal BCE in north-eastern Minorca, coinciding with other sporadic archaeological evidence (Cova dels Morts rock-shelter) which support the possibility of a pre-Chalcolithic discovery and frequentation of the island. We record deep environmental change during the third millennium cal BCE, reflected in the substitution of the former mesophytic vegetation by Mediterranean maquis formations dominated by wild olive trees, heathers, mastic and Cistaceae. We propose that maquis, garrigues and open-land vegetation were favoured by human action in a context of increasing climatic dryness and seasonality, promoting vegetation flammability and substitution of former mesic communities to more adapted termophilous vegetation. The comparison of our new record from Addaia with other pollen studies from the Balearic Islands highlights the resilience of mesic vegetation to climate change. This is shown by the survival of box formations to the increased aridification initiated at ca. sixth-fifth millennium cal BCE (ca. 7-6 cal kyr BP) in the Western Mediterranean which culminated at ca. fourth-third millennium cal BCE (ca. 5-4 cal kyr BP). Additionally, whilst sporadic human presence versus stable occupation are difficult to detect in archaeological records, the coupling with paleoenvironmental studies may offer new scenarios and information for human arrival in the Balearic Islands.