Human response to habitat suitability during the Last Glacial Maximum in Western Europe

Abstract

This research takes a multi-dimensional approach to the study of the archaeological record of Western Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), combining two distinct components of the human adaptive system (technological organization and mobility) to test the impact of environmental variability on the mobility of Upper Palaeolithic groups. To this end we make use of two models. The first predicts landscape suitability as a function of a suite of environmental variables including topography, climate and inter-annual climate variability. The second model explores the link between patterns of mobility and technological organization, using lithic retouch frequencies as a proxy for mobility strategies. Combining detailed environmental and lithic data allows us to derive a clearer picture of human adaptation to environmental conditions during a particularly rigorous climatic interval in Western Europe. Our results show that while foragers generally favoured more suitable habitats, logistical mobility strategies were deployed across a wide spectrum of habitat suitability. Residential mobility strategies, on the other hand, tend to occur in relatively less suitable and thus inherently more variable habitats. We conclude that foragers made use of a predominantly logistic strategy during the LGM while adopting more residential strategies in response to local and relatively short-term fluctuations in the environment. The approach adopted here offers several promising avenues for future research on the ecology of human groups during the LGM.

Global perspectives on the impact of drastic environmental changes in hunter‐gatherer technologies

“…Crombé, ), from the Middle Stone Age (Thompson et al, ) to the Mesolithic, and geographical contexts, from South Asia (Roberts et al, ) to Atlantic Iberia (i.e. Cascalheira and Bicho, ; Straus, ), sometimes bounded by great climatic phases, such as MIS 3 (Riel‐Salvatore and Negrino, ) or the Last Glacial Maximum (Burke et al ., ). Links between climate and human technological adaptations have been provided for large millennial scales to short Bond events.…”

The archaeology of climate change: The case for cultural diversity

“…The resulting model of habitat suitability was then used to design an agent-based model to test how habitat suitability structures patterns of human land use, population structure, connectivity, and patterns of gene flow (99) with implications for cultural reproduction that are still being explored. The implications of the habitat suitability model for the adoption of different human mobility strategies were then tested using the archaeological record and lithic retouch frequencies in a diachronic study (100). The results of this collaborative research program demonstrate the value of a multidisciplinary approach for each of the disciplines involved.…”

Using Mg/Ca Ratios from the Limpet Patella depressa Pennant, 1777 Measured by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) to Reconstruct Paleoclimate

“…Reconstructing environmental conditions and climate change during the past, particularly at a seasonal resolution, is key for better understanding the impact of external changes on different aspects of human behavior [4,5,14]. Previous sclerochronological studies carried out on mollusks collected from northern Spain have revealed that δ 18 O shell values obtained from Phorcus lineatus [51,73], P. vulgata [74], P. depressa [72], and Mytilus galloprovincialis [83] can all be considered as effective high-resolution SST recorders.…”

“…There has long been a keen theoretical and methodological interest in archaeology at elucidating the impacts of climatic and environmental change on hominin behavior, settlement, and culture in different parts of the world at different points of time [1][2][3][4][5], and how this might be mobilized to inform challenges facing our species in the 21st century [6,7]. In western Europe, climate changes have been variously argued to have had deep implications for Neanderthal behavior and eventual extinction [8][9][10], the tempo and nature of 2 of 17 human hunter-gatherer settlement across the Last Glacial Maximum and Early-Middle Holocene [11][12][13], and the arrival and adaptations of the first farmers [14,15].…”