Humans have inhabited the seashores and rivers of the Iberian Peninsula for thousands of years, leaving behind numerous traces and a wide variety of fish remains. These findings provide valuable data for tracking changes in fish species distributions over time as well as identifying regional variations. While a large amount of information is available for the area, most of it is scattered throughout a variety of sources.

This Data Descriptor introduces the Very Long-term Iberian Fish Database (VLTIberianFISH), a comprehensive compilation of 94,204 fish remains from 441 samples across 225 archaeological sites throughout Iberia. The identified portion of the assemblages (NISP = 81,312) comprises identifications at the species, genus, family, and order or higher taxonomic levels. Spanning approximately 90,000 years – from the Middle Palaeolithic to the 19th century – the VLTIberianFISH Database offers a resource for a range of disciplines concerned with aquatic environments, human occupancy and resource exploitation.

Available Open Access

Gabriel, S., Barrett, J.H., Sillero, N., Santos, R.S., Tavares, A. The Very Long-term Iberian Fish Database Archaeological Fish Occurrences within the Iberian Peninsula. Scientific Data (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07079-5