Convergent catastrophes and the termination of the Arctic Norwegian Stone Age: A multi-proxy assessment of the demographic and adaptive responses of mid-Holocene collectors to biophysical forcing

Abstract

Using multiple archeological and paleoenvironmental proxies, this paper makes the case for a climate-induced convergent catastrophe among the human population of terminal Stone Age Arctic Norway. We show that climatic changes correlate with the termination of the so-called Gressbakken phase (4200–3500 cal BP), and unpack the middle-range mechanisms linking the Gressbakken termination to contemporaneous changes in the biophysical environment. We show that what was a Holocene extreme, and likely volcanically-induced, climate deterioration around 3550 cal BP coincided with a population decline as reflected in the frequency of radiocarbon-dated archeological sites along with major changes in material culture and settlement pattern. Together, these proxies suggest a return to forms of social and economic organization based on lower population densities, higher residential mobility, and reduced locational investments. In establishing the middle-range ecological mechanics mediating these changes into archeologically observable patterns, the results indicate that the Gressbakken termination was the result of a particularly unstable climate period characterized by regional paludification, increased effective precipitation, forest decline, and likely impacts on reindeer populations and their migratory behavior, with drastic human implications. We argue for a convergent catastrophe-scenario in which a series of hardships between 4000 and 3500 cal BP exceeded the adaptive mitigation capabilities of the contemporaneous Arctic Norwegian population. Our study supports the notion that increased sedentism and locational investment actually increases vulnerability in the face of rapid biophysical change and contributes to the growing database of past human ecodynamics that speak to current socio-ecological concerns.

Scalar Effects in Ground Slate Technology and the Adaptive Consequences for Circumpolar Maritime Hunter-Gatherers

“…Detailed scrutiny of the mid-Holocene population cycle and regional differentiation has demonstrated that it entailed considerable coastal packing and coincident population depletion in the interior (Hood et al In press;Jørgensen and Riede 2019). A wider comparative study showed that the human ecodynamics identified in Arctic Norway occurred in synchrony with a maritime adaptive specialization across northern Fennoscandia (Jørgensen et al 2020) along with analogous population dynamics in adjacent areas (Tallavaara et al 2010;Tallavaara and Pesonen 2018;Tallavaara and Seppä 2012).…”

“…Crucially, the mid-Holocene population peak corresponds to what was also a forest maximum, with forest coverage on the coast, greatly exceeding current conditions (Sjögren and Damm 2019). In response, the presence of sedentary ecotype, forest reindeer close to the coast has been suggested and argued to have reinforced the coastal settlement packing (Hood In press;Jørgensen and Riede 2019). This would undercut the need for mobility patterns into the interior as all necessary resources were available at the coast and thus facilitate increased sedentism.…”

“…It is necessary to establish changes in maritime adaptation and economic intensification given the critical links between them and the subsistence technologies explored here. Such a review is also made relevant by recent studies establishing the palaeodemographic and environmental dynamics in the area (E. K. Jørgensen 2018; E. K. Jørgensen et al 2020;E. K. Jørgensen and Riede 2019), making it possible to investigate technological changes in tandem with these.…”

A Late Mesolithic Forager Dispersal Caused Pre‐agricultural Demographic Transition in Norway

“…2018; Damm et al . 2019; Jørgensen and Riede 2019; Tallavaara and Pesonen 2019) over the last decades.…”

Changes in limiting factors for forager population dynamics in Europe across the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition

“…The relevance of past demography for understanding culture change in prehistory specifically has long been recognised 2,3 . Demographic conditions impinge on cultural transmission [4][5][6] but are also clearly implicated in the boom-and-bust patterns of population fluctuations -including periodic extirpations -suggested to have characterised the demographic histories of prehistoric foragers and incipient farmers in many regions [7][8][9][10] . Numerous recent studies have focused on the drivers of population expansion to explain the pattern and timing of human colonisation using a variety of ecological comparative approaches 11,12 (but see ref.…”