Last Interglacial Piñar River Valley and Monte del Castillo
Artistic rendering of the Last Interglacial (Unit VIIa: Vega-Toscano, 1988) in the Piñar River Valley and Monte del Castillo, where the Neanderthal site of Carihuela and Las Ventanas Cave (left cliffs) are located. The landscape features forests dominated by Quercus and Olea, and a riparian gallery (centre) with willows, ashes, alders, and elms. Pines appear on more exposed and rocky biotopes. These forests may have been partially cleared by megaherbivore activity (Pearce et al., 2023, 2025). The Holocene sequence from the same site lacks dominant Olea, being instead characterized by both deciduous and evergreen Quercus (Fernández et al., 2007). See Supplementary Information for taxonomic details and Section 4.3 for further discussion (Carrión, 1992; Carrión et al., 1998; 2019b). Artwork: G. and A. Amorós.
Carrión JS, Amorós G, Amorós A, Marín-Arroyo AB. Beyond the Cold Steppes: Neanderthal Landscapes and the Neglect of Flora. Quaternary Science Reviews, invited paper. Volume 371, January 2026, 109673
