Abstract
Palaeolithic subsistence research has focused on hunting and animal resources, whereas plant gathering was conside-red a secondary activity. This unbalanced situation is unreal and stems from taphonomical, methodological and ideolo-gical issues, which causes this biased image. The Iberian peninsula is an exceptional scenario where researchers can assess the use of plant resources by Prehistoric hunter-gathe-rers due to the long tradition and dynamism of archaeobota-nical research. This paper presents a review of the available information about plant gathering from the Lower Palaeo-lithic to the Mesolithic, coming from carpological analyses. Although scarce in some periods, the data show that the use of plant resources with different aims (food, raw material, medicine) is present as of the Lower Palaeolithic, although a diversification of the plants used and consumption modes in the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic is detected.