New data about the landscape of the first occupation of Mallorca: Coval Simo (Escorca, Mallorca)

The Coval Simo shelter provides some of the oldest evidence for settlement on the island of Mallorca and the Balearic archipelago. It also has the peculiarity of being a habitat in a mountain area, so that the human groups that settled there had to adapt their agricultural and farming system to this environment. The plant remains (wood charcoal and seeds) recovered in the occupation levels allow us to address these issues, since they are the result of the different activities developed in this cavity: fuel for domestic activities, food for livestock, etc. The results of this study show that between the III and II millennium cal BC, an agricultural system based on livestock and cereal farming was implemented, which exploited local forest formations to obtain resources, among them, firewood. The plants that were exploited show the existence of juniper forests, with the presence of maples and legumes, among other shrubs and bushes.