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Human settlements around the fluvial wetland of Las Tablas de Daimiel (central Spain) have been related to the water availability in this area for nearly 5500 years; however the relationship of the hydrology of the wetland to climate change remains uncertain. Whilst archaeological and pollen data provide contradictory arguments, statistical empirical mode decomposition of geochemical data from core S-1 reveals arid periods ca. 1.8 cal. ka BP, ca. 3.3 cal. ka BP and ca. 5.5 cal. ka BP between which periods both Bronze Age and Iberian-Roman settlements developed. These periods can be identified in other records of the Iberian Peninsula and around the western Mediterranean. Comparison of these records points to a complex spatial pattern that evolved in time and, despite a number of forcings (volcanism, solar activity, atmosphere-ocean interactions) being invoked to explain such periods, there is no clear mechanism to explain their spatial pattern and the changes that have taken place since 2.5 ka BP. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.