Résumé
Archaeological evidence suggests that the density of sites in Western Europe has increased since the early Middle Pleistocene (~774-450 ka), primarily in France, Italy, and the British Isles, with none found in southern Spain. One possible hypothesis for this lack of occupation is that environmental and climate changes in this region made it unsuitable for human settlement. However, vegetation dynamics in southern Spain, and more broadly, across the Western Mediterranean, remain poorly understood for this period, due to the scarcity of available records. Here, we present a new, continuous and regional pollen record from marine ODP Site 976 in the Alboran Sea, located south of the Iberian Peninsula. Our aim is to document the vegetation response in this region during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 14 to MIS 12 (~563-426 ka). A multi-method approach, combining modern analogues, regression models and machine-learning techniques, are applied to the pollen data to reconstruct annual and seasonal temperature and precipitation. These results are compared with those from other western Mediterranean pollen records, as well as with the timing of human occupations recorded in an archaeological database. This strengthens our understanding of settlement dynamics in Western Europe and their relationship with environmental changes.The pollen data and climate reconstructions reveal significant shifts in vegetation and climate: a steppe-dominated landscape under less severe conditions during MIS 14 (~563-536 ka), two phases of temperate forest expansion during MIS 13 (~536-482 ka); and an enhanced steppe development under the very cold MIS 12 (~482-426 ka) climate. Additionally, this study identifies three distinct climatic phases in southern Spain during MIS 13 and MIS 12, as recorded in several marine, European pollen and Chinese loess archives. While these archives were able to distinguish multiple phases within MIS 14, our pollen record’s resolution is still insufficient to detect them.