Eastern Fennoscandia and the adjacent regions of the northwestern East European Plain

Dolukhanov, Pavel; Kosheleva, Elena A.; Lisitsyn, Sergey; Subetto, D.A.

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-813532-7.00005-x

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This process is thought to have triggered a significant incentive for humans to colonize the postglacial coastal landscape of northernmost Europe. This entailed a radical economic shift: From terrestrially oriented foraging societies of the late-glacial Ahrensburgian and Butovo/Veretye groups on the Eurasian plain, moving north and west and developing the maritime adaptations quintessential to the Scandinavian Mesolithic (Schmitt et al, 2006; Bang-Andersen, 2012, 2013; Schmitt, 2015; Schmitt and Svedhage, 2015; Dolukhanov et al, 2017). The colonization of Norway at the termination of the Younger Dryas (11,700 cal yr BP) occurred along a coastal route requiring seafaring vessels and the know-how of a marine-oriented economy (Bjerck, 2017).…”

Section: Regional Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climatic changes cause synchronous population dynamics and adaptive strategies among coastal hunter-gatherers in Holocene northern Europe

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Synchronized demographic and behavioral patterns among distinct populations is a well-known, natural phenomenon. Intriguingly, similar patterns of synchrony occur among prehistoric human populations. However, the drivers of synchronous human ecodynamics are not well understood. Addressing this issue, we review the role of environmental variability in causing human demographic and adaptive responses. As a case study, we explore human ecodynamics of coastal hunter-gatherers in Holocene northern Europe, comparing population, economic, and environmental dynamics in two separate areas (northern Norway and western Finland). Population trends are reconstructed using temporal frequency distributions of radiocarbon-dated and shoreline-dated archaeological sites. These are correlated to regional environmental proxies and proxies for maritime resource use. The results demonstrate remarkably synchronous patterns across population trajectories, marine resource exploitation, settlement pattern, and technological responses. Crucially, the population dynamics strongly correspond to significant environmental changes. We evaluate competing hypotheses and suggest that the synchrony stems from similar responses to shared environmental variability. We take this to be a prehistoric human example of the “Moran effect,” positing similar responses of geographically distinct populations to shared environmental drivers. The results imply that intensified economies and social interaction networks have limited impact on long-term hunter-gatherer population trajectories beyond what is already proscribed by environmental drivers.

show abstract