Did the mid-Holocene environmental changes cause the boom and bust of hunter-gatherer population size in eastern Fennoscandia?

Abstract

Prehistoric hunter-gatherer population size is often assumed to follow climatic and other environmental forcings that affect environmental productivity and the availability of food for human foragers. We tested this assumption by studying the co-variation of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records during the Holocene in eastern Fennoscandia. The reconstruction of population history is based on the summed probability distribution of archaeological radiocarbon dates, and environmental changes are tracked with locally available, high-resolution biological and physical proxies that are relevant in terms of hunter-gatherer food availability and population dynamics. The results show major population growth during the period of high summer temperature and high productivity of the terrestrial, lacustrine and marine ecosystems that occurred during 7500–5700 cal. yr BP. The growth was followed by an abrupt decline during 5500–4000 cal. yr BP correlating with the onset of late-Holocene cooling and a major forest ecosystem change brought about by the expansion of Norway spruce and the associated change from species-rich mixed forests to a conifer-dominated boreal ecosystem. Forest ecosystem changes likely enforced the negative effects of decreasing productivity on hunter-gatherer food availability. The link between population and environmental proxies breaks down along with the intensification of agriculture after 3500 cal. yr BP, which indicates that agriculture weakened the environmental forcing on long-term human population dynamics.