Environmental and ethnobotanical data inferred from pollen of Gobero and the dried lakebeds in the surrounding area.

In the framework of a multidisciplinary research, pollen data from the site of Gobero and its surroundings were helpful to reconstruct some features of the plant landscape of the region at the time of occupation by Pre-Pastoral and Pastoral populations, in early and mid-Holocene phases, respectively. Samples were collected from the burial excavations and the desiccated lakebeds of the area. The latter ones correspond to layers of lacustrine events stratigraphically determined in the Gobero basin. As usual in arid land deposits, most of the samples did not contain pollen, and others had deteriorated pollen and low concentration values. Nevertheless, pollen spectra were obtained from 39 samples. They showed a low biodiversity. Ficus and Ziziphus-type were the most common woody taxa, together with Capparis, Combretum-type, Myrtus and Salvadora persica. Spectra were herb-dominated, with a prevalence of Poaceae, Chenopodiaceae, and Cyperaceae, together with Asteraceae and Plantago. Hygro-hydrophytes such as Typha, Juncus, Nymphaea and Potamogeton evidenced local wet environments. In fact, the landscape was a mosaic of xeric and wet environments, prevalently covered by a savanna or grassland vegetation. The environment was wetter in the early Holocene than in the midddle Holocene. In a few cases, the pollen from some burials suggested that plants could have been collected to transport grasses, myrtle and capers to the site, in order to lay them near the human bodies, showing a possible thousands-year-old behaviour of using plants as grave goods.