The expansion of Central and Northern European Neolithic populations was associated with a multi-century warm winter and wetter climate

• Published in: The Holocene
• Main Authors: Sanchez Goni, Maria Fernanda, Ortu, Elena, Banks, William E., Giraudeau, Jacques, Leroyer, Chantal, Hanquiez, Vincent
• Other Authors: École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL), Environnements et Paléoenvironnements OCéaniques (EPOC), Observatoire aquitain des sciences de l'univers (OASU), Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1 (UB)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1 (UB)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel : Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie (PACEA), Université de Bordeaux (UB)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre de Recherche en Archéologie, Archéosciences, Histoire (CReAAH), Le Mans Université (UM)-Université de Rennes (UR)-Université de Rennes 2 (UR2)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Nantes - UFR Histoire, Histoire de l'Art et Archéologie (UFR HHAA), Université de Nantes (UN)-Université de Nantes (UN)-Ministère de la Culture (MC), Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (MCC), French National research Agency ANR-09-CEP-004-01/OBRESOC, European Community Marie Curie Actions, 'CASE' ITN 238111, ANR-09-CEPL-0004,OBRESOC,Un observatoire rétrospectif d'une société archéologique: La trajectoire du néolithique Rubané.(2009)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: trondheimsfjord; fluctuations; tree-line area; central norway; holocene climate; atlantic oscillation; surface sediments; pollen data; data set; reconstructions; [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; Norway; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01395328; https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683616638435

International audience It is still debated whether climate changes had an impact on the emergence, spread, and disappearance of early production-based (Neolithic) adaptations. To date, and despite the incorporation of various paleoclimatic proxies, there exists no spatial reconstruction of the regional impact of the North Atlantic cooling events on Central-Western European climate and environments during the early Holocene. In order to address these two issues, we estimated seasonal and annual temperature and precipitation from a marine pollen record from Trondheimsfjord (central Norway) along with 68 pollen records distributed across Central-Western Europe for the time period associated with the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) cultural tradition, 7600-6900 yr cal. BP. Two distinct vegetation-derived rapid, <100 years, climate changes, contemporaneous with reduced warm Atlantic water (AW) inflow and winter storminess in the northern North Atlantic, bracket the expansion of the LBK. The geographic expansion of LBK populations appears to coincide with winter warming by ca. 2.5 degrees C on average, and an increase in summer and winter precipitation, while its decline is associated with decreases in winter temperature, by similar to 1.5 degrees C on average, and summer rainfall. Our results confirm that LBK subsistence practices were well-adapted to wet and relatively warm winters and cool summers, which are favorable to some cultigens, such as einkorn. This is in contrast to the hypothesis that cooler and wetter climatic conditions would induce increased instability of agricultural communities leading to the decline of LBK populations.