Impact of Climate Change on Hunter‐Fisher‐Gatherer Cultures in Northern Japan Over the Past 4,400 Years

Abstract

Understanding the impacts of climate change on human society is of central importance in environmental science because it facilitates prediction of the future of human society and mitigation of the climate impacts. Hunter and gatherer societies are assumed to have been influenced by climate change, and case studies provide knowledge about how climate change affects human society. Hokkaido, in northern Japan, was an area where densely populated societies of hunter-fisher-gatherer cultures persisted with some modifications through the Holocene until the 19th century (Text S1 in the Supporting Information S1; e.g.,