The effects of climate and population on human land use patterns in Europe from 22ka to 9ka ago

TY - JOUR

T1 - The effects of climate and population on human land use patterns in Europe from 22ka to 9ka ago

AU - Yaworsky, Peter M.

AU - Hussain, Shumon T.

AU - Riede, Felix

PY - 2024/11

Y1 - 2024/11

N2 - Between 22ka and 9ka ago, after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and during the transition to the Holocene, mobile hunter-gatherer populations, differentiated by their stone tool assemblages, periodically dispersed and contracted across Europe. It is well understood that climate played an important role in human distributions and population sizes during the post-LGM Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, but the question remains as to whether increasing population sizes drove early human dispersal. Here, using a spatiotemporal species distribution model to infer the fundamental and potential human climatic niche space of Late Upper Paleolithic, Final Paleolithic and Early Mesolithic Europe, and hypotheses derived from the Ideal Distribution Model, we test i) how changes in climate affected the size and extent of the projected potential human niche space, ii) for effects of changes in size of projected potential niche on regional human population sizes, iii) whether increasing human population sizes drove human dispersal into less climatically suitable habitats, and iv) whether populations associated with different high-order material culture groupings (macro-level technocomplexes) occupied different climatic spaces. We find that changes in climate correlate strongly with the size and extent of the projected potential human niche space, that increases in the projected human niche space correlate with increases in human population, that human population size is just beginning to become large enough to influence land use and dispersal patterns at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, and that archaeological technocultural entities overlap in their fundamental climatic niche space. This overlap implies that changing tools forms cannot readily been seen as reflecting adaptations to changing climates.

AB - Between 22ka and 9ka ago, after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and during the transition to the Holocene, mobile hunter-gatherer populations, differentiated by their stone tool assemblages, periodically dispersed and contracted across Europe. It is well understood that climate played an important role in human distributions and population sizes during the post-LGM Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, but the question remains as to whether increasing population sizes drove early human dispersal. Here, using a spatiotemporal species distribution model to infer the fundamental and potential human climatic niche space of Late Upper Paleolithic, Final Paleolithic and Early Mesolithic Europe, and hypotheses derived from the Ideal Distribution Model, we test i) how changes in climate affected the size and extent of the projected potential human niche space, ii) for effects of changes in size of projected potential niche on regional human population sizes, iii) whether increasing human population sizes drove human dispersal into less climatically suitable habitats, and iv) whether populations associated with different high-order material culture groupings (macro-level technocomplexes) occupied different climatic spaces. We find that changes in climate correlate strongly with the size and extent of the projected potential human niche space, that increases in the projected human niche space correlate with increases in human population, that human population size is just beginning to become large enough to influence land use and dispersal patterns at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, and that archaeological technocultural entities overlap in their fundamental climatic niche space. This overlap implies that changing tools forms cannot readily been seen as reflecting adaptations to changing climates.

KW - Behavioral ecology

KW - Climate change

KW - Data analysis

KW - Data treatment

KW - Europe

KW - Hunter-gatherers

KW - Ideal distribution model

KW - Lithic technology

KW - Paleogeography

KW - Paleolithic

KW - Pleistocene

KW - Species distribution modeling

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85204883627&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108956

DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108956

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85204883627

SN - 0277-3791

VL - 344

JO - Quaternary Science Reviews

JF - Quaternary Science Reviews

M1 - 108956

ER -