## 5 Discussion
### Mid-Holocene Vegetation History and Neolithic Landscape Transformation in the Western Mediterranean
#### 5.3.2 Social Use of Space  
As stated in the introduction, pathological analysis of archaeological sediments (archaeopalynology) is a valuable tool to approach archaeological questions from a different perspective, given the influence of human activities in the pollen record composition. In this sense, significant accumulations of pollen grains and spores could respond to gathered plants, stored cultivars and presence of dung (animal and/orhuman) within the settlement. Despite taphonomic processes, in terms of deposition of pollen and spores, different environmental conditions played a major role in the spatial distribution of pollen and NPP at La Draga, while anthropogenic activities would also have influenced their distribution. They would have been responsible, by human use of space, for the existence of these different depositional environments, or the accumulation of certain taxa by anthropogenic activities or events. The spatial analysis of pollen and NPP distribution in Sector B-D provided one example where the social use of space originated different depositional environments. While the space below a pile dwelling (east) [48] was characterised as humid and organic and waste material accumulated (faunal remains, coprophilous fungi, parasites), the exterior environment was defined as sub-aerial with higher values of arboreal pollen (AP). Thus, the differential deposition environments were caused by insolation in outsidespaces contrasting with moisture beneath the structures. Thus, the spatial distribution of AP can be used to assess inside/outside spaces in an archaeological site, in which the exterior areas provide a more reliable picture of the original pollen rain. On the contrary, inside spaces are strongly altered by human input of plants, giving a distorted image of pollen rain, with herbs overrepresented [97]. In that sense, some herbs (Poaceae, Asteraceae liquiliflorae, Asteraceae tubiliforae, Caryophyllaceae, _Polygonum_, _Aquilega-t_, Apiaceae) accumulated in interior spaces in Sector B-D. These, may have been brought to the settlement for their subsistence value, as recorded in other archaeopalynological studies [98; 99; 100] and supported by the presence of most of these taxa in the cartological record at La Draga [30]. The identification of the human parasite _Trichuris trichiura_[95] points to the existence of human faeces at La Draga, concentrated in the NE part of Sector D [48], and suggests that spores of coprophilous fungi may not be restricted to animal origin. However, the occurrence of other parasites related to animals, such as swine (_Macraanthorhynchus_ and _Ascaris_ sp.) or ruminants such as cattle (_Dicroceiium dendriticum_ and _Panamplistomum_ sp.) [95] indicates how humans and animals shared spaces within the settlement. In addition, significant differences have been identified between some of the archaeological structures in Sector A, with significant accumulation of anthropogenic taxa in structure E263, characterised by a large concentrated of archaeological remains and an accumulation of bucrania and other ungulate skulls [101]. Figure 7 shows a positive correlation of Cerealia-t, _Aster-t_, Fabaceae, _Galium-t_, _Hypecoun-t_, _Verhea officinalis_, Cyperaceae, _Vitis_, and the accumulation of these taxa in the NE part of the sector, most likely related to the storage or processing of crops and gathering of some edible plants. In that sense, the spatial distribution of Cerealia-t pollen provided notable data about agricultural activities at La Draga. In Sector B-D, the highest values of Cerealia-t were documented in the south-western corner, spatially correlated with a concentration of grinding tools in the area nearby (Figure 9), as well as with charred monocot epidermis, signs of pollen degradation (maximum values of undeterminable pollen and lowest of pollen concentration) and a significant concentration of charred _Triticum aestivum/durum/turgidium_ seeds, interpreted as a probable storage structure, indicating, consequently, a probable area of wheat processing [48].