Move or stay put – Two distinct metapopulation responses to environmental degradation during the Gravettian and Late Palaeolithic at their ecological margins

0575609 - ARÚ 2024 DE eng A - Abstrakt
Maier, A. - Schmidt, I. - Gehlen, B. - Kapustka, Katarína … celkem 25 autorů
Move or stay put – Two distinct metapopulation responses to environmental degradation during the Gravettian and Late Palaeolithic at their ecological margins.
Hugo Obermaier Society for Quaternary Research and Archaeology of the Stone Age. 64th Annual Meeting in Aarhus. April 11th - April 15th 2023. Erlangen: Hugo Obermaier-Gesellschaft für Erforschung des Eiszeitalters und der Steinzeit e.V., 2023 - (Weiss, M.). s. 56-57. ISBN 978-3-946387-51-0.
[Hugo Obermaier Society for Quaternary Research and Archaeology of the Stone Age. Annual Meeting /64./. 11.04.2023-15.04.2023, Aarhus]
Institucionální podpora: RVO:67985912
Klíčová slova: Late Palaeolithic * Gravettian * population
Obor OECD: Archaeology

During the Upper and Late Palaeolithic of Europe, Homo sapiens populations were confronted with two major cooling phases. First, the rather gradual transition from the Early Gravettian towards the Last Glacial Maximum, and second, the rather rapid change from Greenland Interstadial 1 (Bølling/Allerød) to Greenland Stadial 1 (Younger Dryas). From a palaeodemographic point of view, both cooling phases are connected with an overall decline in population. So at the large scale, there seem to be strong similarities in the reaction of the meta-population to the climatic event. At a regional scale, however, the results are quite different, particularly at the northern ecological margins of the meta-population. The transition from the Early to Late Gravettian is characterized by declining populations in virtually all investigated areas and even regional population breakdowns north of 50°N. Consequently, it seems that hunter-gatherer groups did not respond to the deteriorating climate with larger population movements – which should be visible in rising or at least stable estimates for some regions – but apparently tried to cope with the altered situation on the spot. At the same time, a stable pattern during both the Early and Late Gravettian can be found in the Franco-Cantabrian region, which continues with high demographic estimates throughout the Upper Palaeolithic. However, this pattern changes during the Late Palaeolithic. For Greenland-Interstadial 1, we estimate the largest populations in Central Europe, more precisely for the Czech Republic and southern Germany. At the transition to the Younger Dryas, we again observe a general decline in the size of the meta-population, which is most pronounced exactly in the area where we previously estimated the highest values. Interestingly, we observe a slight increase in the immediately adjacent area of Poland and north-eastern Germany. This finding indicates a population movement to the north-east and therefore an entirely different reaction than during the Gravettian.
Trvalý link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0345378