## 5 Discussion  
### Mid-Holocene Vegetation History and Neolithic Landscape Transformation in the Western Mediterranean  
The palynological study of Piantarella and Saint Florent sequences provided new insights into the Corsican landscapes prior to their transformation by humans. As shown in Piantarella (South Corsica), the landscape during the Early Neolithic was predominated by _Erica_, which could have formed forests during the Early Holocene, but the continuous impact of human activities would have converted it to Mediterranean scrubland [24; 70]. In that sense, the phases of regression in _Erica_ in 7.3-7.2 kyr cal BP in Piantarella (Figure 3) are clear evidence of the onset of this process of landscape transformation in which Early Neolithic communities played a major role. This regression of Mediterranean scrublands led to the expansion of herbs, peaks in Asteraceae, occurrence of Cerealia-t and spores of coprophilous fungi, as well as some peaks in soil-erosion indicators (Figure 3). Thus, the Piantarella 1 record is notable for being the earliest evidence of the impact of farming activities in southern Corsica [24], and could be related with nearby Early Neolithic sites, such as Araguina Sennola (7.8-7.0 kyr cal BP, [71], Longone (7.5-6.9 kyr cal BP, [19]) and/or Abri du Goulet (EN without \({}^{14}\)C dating). In Saint Florent (North Corsica), the pollen record indicates denser vegetation, and the relatively high values of _Erica_ (lower than in Piantarella) would be related to Mediterranean scrubland growing on drier soils or at lower elevations in the context of the predominance of evergreen oak forest at a regional scale and riparian forests at local scale (Figure 4). These differences in the vegetation would be related to a more humid climate in North Corsica, but the fact that the Saint Florent sequence starts at 6.3 kyr cal BP does not allow an assessment of the existing landscape when the first farming communities became established in the region, and the low values of _Erica_ could be the effect of previous human impacts in North Corsica. For that reason, future research will focus on drilling new cores in the area to reach older chronologies and reconstruct vegetation history from the Early Neolithic. In any case, the landscape in North Corsica was dominated by forests until the Late Holocene, with relativelyhigh AP values (60-80%),and the existence of open vegetation being the result of human impacts in historical times (0.7--0.02 kyr cal BP, Figure 4). However, phases of human impact are characterised during the Late Neolithic-Chalcolithic by the occurrence of Cerealia-type pollen and spores of coprophilous fungi, in the context of forest decline (riparian forests in ~5.9-5.8 kyr cal BP, and mesic and sclerophyllous forests in ~5.2-5.0 kyr cal BP, Zone SF-A2, Figure 4) and the expansion of maquis. A clear difference is seen between North and South Corsica; while Piantarella shows how human impact affected _Erica_-dominated maquis, landscape transformation activities in Saint Florent affected mainly riparian and sclerophylllous forests, and the expansion of maquis acts as a signal of human impact. Both regions indeed coincide in the clear evidence of the impact of farming activities in coastal areas, suggesting that coastal wetlands in Corsica were highly valued by the first farming communities for their settlements and agricultural and husbandry activities from the Early Neolithic and in different phases in the Middle and Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and, thereafter in historical periods. The results from palynological studies in Lake Banyoles show that the first farmers found a region covered by dense broadleaf deciduous forests (Figure 5), and both LB and SB2 records show an abrupt decline in oak forest in ~7.4-7.3 kyr cal BP, coinciding with the early Neolithic settlement of La Draga.