The Late Glacial ancestry of Europeans: combining genetic and archaeological evidence

• Published in: Documenta Praehistorica
• Main Authors: Gamble, Clive, Davies, William, Pettitt, Paul, Hazelwood, Lee, Richards, Martin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakulte / Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts 2006
• Subjects: Radiocarbon; Calibration; Late Glacial; Settlement patterns; mitochondrial DNA; GRIP; Archaeological Taxonomic Unit; Baza; ice core; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/DocumentaPraehistorica/article/view/33.1; https://doi.org/10.4312/dp.33.1

Chronometric attention in the Late Glacial of Western Europe is turning from the dating of archaeological cultures to studying how the continent was re-populated at the end of the last ice age. We present results from a survey of all available radiocarbon determinations (the S2AGES database) which show that when calibrated, and compared to the GRIP stratotype of climatic events, the data can be interpreted as five population events in the 15ka prior to the onset of the Holocene. The fine-grained climate record provides an opportunity to study the impact of environmental factors on a human dispersal process that not only shaped subsequent European prehistory, but also the genetic makeup of modern Europeans. The population events have implications for archaeologists and molecular geneticists concerning the timing, direction, speed and scale of processes in Western European demographic history. The results also bear on the role of climatic forcing on the expansion and contraction of human populations and in particular the correlation of ice core and terrestrial records for the onset of warming in the North Atlantic. Kronometrična pozornost se v poznem glacialu zahodne Evrope odmika od datiranja arheoloških kultur k proučevanju ponovne poselitve kontinenta ob koncu zadnje ledene dobe. Predstavljamo rezultate pregleda vseh dosegljivih radiokarbonskih sekvenc (podatkovna baza S2AGES), ki kažejo, da lahko datume, potem ko jih kalibriramo in primerjamo z GRIP stratotipom klimatskih dogodkov, interpretiramo kot zaporedje petih populacijskih dogodkov v času 15ka pred pojavom holocena. Podrobno strukturiran klimatski zapis nam omogoča proučevanje vpliva okoljskih faktorjev na proces človekove razselitve, ki je sooblikoval evropsko prazgodovino in genetski zapis modernih Evropejcev. Populacijski dogodki so pomembni za arheologe in molekularne genetike, ki se ukvarjajo s časovnim usklajevanjem, smerjo, hitrostjo in obsegom procesov v zahodnoevropski demografski zgodovini. Rezultati kažejo na pomen klimatskih pritiskov pri širjenju in krčenju človeških populacij in še posebej na korelacijo med lednimi in kopenskimi zapisi ob začetku segrevanja v severnem Atlantiku.