Using Palaeoecology to uncover colonization processes in Western Mediterranean islands

Dr. Gabriel Servera-Vives is an archaeologist and palynologist from Mallorca, currently working with the ArqueUIB group at the University of the Balearic Islands under a Ramón y Cajal contract. His research primarily explores socio-environmental interactions during the Holocene in both island and continental settings, utilizing a combination of archaeological and off-site records. He completed his PhD with a thesis on Holocene landscape evolution and human activity since the Neolithic period in Mont Lozère (French Central Massif). His work involved a multi-proxy analysis of peat bogs within a middle mountain environment, shedding light on how landscapes and human practices have co-evolved over millennia. Since 2015, his research has focused on landscape transformations during Balearic Prehistory, emphasizing island colonization processes and the resulting human impacts. His approach is distinctly transdisciplinary, integrating modern analogues of pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs with multiproxy palaeoecological methods to reconstruct past environments and understand human-environment interactions.