Prehistoric population history in eastern Fennoscandia

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2009.09.035

Journal of Archaeological Science

Volume 37, Issue 2, February 2010, Pages 251-260

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2009.09.035 Get rights and content

Abstract

In this article, prehistoric population history in eastern Fennoscandia is modelled using summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates. In addition, radiocarbon date distribution is compared with other proxy data. Different proxies seem to produce similar distributions, which enhances the overall reliability of the pattern. The results indicate that there was a very pronounced peak in the hunter–gatherer population slightly after 4000 cal BC. This peak seems to be linked to increased environmental productivity. The subsequent population decline culminated just before the local appearance of farming economies in different sub-areas, which is an interesting result in the wider northern and central European context. Along with the adoption of agriculture, new population growth began in eastern Fennoscandia.

Introduction

After a couple of lean decades, archaeologists are showing an increasing interest in prehistoric population patterns. On the methodological side, the use of different kinds of proxy measures has proven to be a promising way of deriving interesting demographic information from archaeological data (e.g. Bocquet-Appel and Demars, 2000, Gamble et al., 2005). For example, using the summed probability distribution of radiocarbon dates, Shennan and Edinborough (2007) investigate the history of Mesolithic and Neolithic populations in Germany, Poland and Denmark. They find, quite expectedly, that the population increased profoundly at the beginning of the Neolithic period. Interestingly, their results also indicate that in all areas, hunter–gatherer population levels were lower just before the local appearance of farming economies than they were some centuries earlier.

In this article, we will focus further north on the European map. Inspired by the questions and methods outlined in recent studies, our aim is to elucidate the population history of eastern Fennoscandia from its earliest colonisation c. 9000 BC to the end of the 12th century AD, which marks the beginning of the historical period in southern and western parts of the research area. In addition, we will explore probable causes of the remarkable fluctuations observed in the population levels by considering the hypothesis that the pattern is linked to changing environmental and subsistence factors. Three different sub-areas are also compared to assess whether the population patterns differ between different geographical and cultural areas. Further broad-scale comparisons of the eastern Fennoscandian population history to the population histories of nearby areas in Northern and Central Europe reveal interesting results as well.

Section snippets

Background: reconstructing prehistoric demographic patterns

Among archaeologists, the renewed theoretical interest in demographic variables, especially in population size, has increased along with the rise of evolutionary archaeology. It has even been said now that population dynamics is the single most important factor in understanding cultural change (Shennan, 2000: 821). As Shennan (2002: 112) has pointed out, it is life history theory that has given a new lease to this subject by predicting that individual-level life history decisions lead to

Radiocarbon date database

The archaeological radiocarbon analyses performed at the Dating Laboratory of Finnish Museum of Natural History (University of Helsinki) form the backbone of the radiocarbon dataset we used. The dataset was also extended to cover, as thoroughly as possible, the published archaeological radiocarbon dates for the eastern Fennoscandian territory measured elsewhere. Altogether, the collected database consists of 1789 individual radiocarbon dates older than 800 radiocarbon years (Table 1). The dates

Summing of radiocarbon dates

With the radiocarbon dates, we followed a method broadly similar to that of Gamble et al. (2005) and Shennan and Edinborough (2007), where probability distributions of the dates were summed and plotted using the CalPal program (Weninger and Jöris, 2004). We used Intcal04 (Reimer et al., 2004) as a calibrating curve, realising its potential problems as some of the samples might have been subject to the reservoir effect.

Previous studies have noted that differing research emphases may cause some

Population proxy distributions and their reliability

Fig. 2 shows eight random samples (n = 996) from uncombined and combined radiocarbon datasets representing the whole research area. The general trend appears to be very similar in every distribution. However, the very pronounced peak between c. 4000 and 3500 cal BC decreases slightly when dates are combined. This decreasing indicates that the average number of dates per site is higher during the peak period than somewhat before and after it, which is likely due to dating campaigns of the ceramic

Conclusion

Our research adds to the growing number of studies that utilise radiocarbon date distributions in the investigation of prehistoric population history. By comparison with other proxies presented here and in previous studies, we have tried to determine whether the temporal frequency distributions of dates give a sufficiently reliable picture of the strength of the archaeological signal, and thus the prehistoric population size in eastern Fennoscandia. The positive results of these comparisons

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank customers of the Dating Laboratory (Finnish Museum of Natural History/University of Helsinki) who kindly gave us permission to use their unpublished dates and Esa Hertell, Peter Jordan, Mikael A. Manninen, Tuija Rankama, Tapani Rostedt, Meri Varonen and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the earlier version of the manuscript. In addition, Tallavaara and Pesonen would like to thank Päivi Onkamo and her Argeopop-project for partly funding their

References (70)

J.-P. Bocquet-Appel et al.
Population kinetics in the Upper Palaeolithic in Western Europe
Journal of Archaeological Science
(2000)
J.-P. Bocquet-Appel et al.
Estimates of Upper Palaeolithic meta-population size in Europe from archaeological data
Journal of Archaeological Science
(2005)
E. Eller
Population extinction and recolonization in human demographic history
Mathematical Biosciences
(2002)
M. Hedman et al.
Analysis of 16 Y STR loci in the Finnish population reveals a local reduction in the diversity of male lineages
Forensic Science International
(2004)
M. Heikkilä et al.
A 11,000 yr palaeotemperature reconstruction from the southern boreal zone in Finland
Quaternary Science Reviews
(2003)
T. Lappalainen et al.
Regional differences among the Finns: a Y-chromosomal perspective
Gene
(2006)
F. Riede
The Laacher See-eruption (12,920 BP) and material culture change at the end of the Allerød in Northern Europe
Journal of Archaeological Science
(2008)
S. Shennan et al.
Prehistoric population history: from the Late Glacial to the Late Neolithic in Central and Northern Europe
Journal of Archaeological Science
(2007)
G. Sohlenius et al.
Development of anoxia during the Holocene fresh–brackish water transition in the Baltic Sea
Marine Geology
(2001)
A.J. Stutz et al.
Increasing the resolution of the broad spectrum revolution in the Southern Levantine Epipaleolithic (19–12 ka)
Journal of Human Evolution
(2009)

T. Surovell et al.

A note on the use of temporal frequency distributions in studies of prehistoric demography

Journal of Archaeological Science

(2007)

T.A. Surovell et al.

Correcting temporal frequency distributions for taphonomic bias

Journal of Archaeological Science

(2009)

B. Winterhalder et al.

The population dynamics of hunter–gatherers and their prey

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

(1988)

H. Asplund

Kymittæ: sites, centrality and long-term settlement change in the Kemiönsaari region in SW Finland

Annales Universitatis Turkuensis B

(2008)

G.E. Belowsky

An optimal foraging-based model of hunter–gatherer population dynamics

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

(1988)

L. Binford

Constructing Frames of Reference. An analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Hunter–Gatherer and Environmental Data Sets

(2001)

J. Boone

Subsistence strategies and early human population history: an evolutionary ecological perspective

World Archaeology

(2002)

C. Carpelan

Käännekohtia Suomen esihistoriassa aikavälillä 5100–1000 eKr

Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk

(1999)

T. Edgren

Alkavan rautakauden kulttuurikuva Länsi-Suomessa

Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk

(1999)

K.-C. Emeis et al.

Salinity changes in the central Baltic Sea (NW Europe) over the last 10 000 years

The Holocene

(2003)

S.J. Fidel et al.

Radiocarbon date frequency as an index of intensity of Paleolithic occupation of Siberia: did humans react predictably to climate oscillations?

Radiocarbon

(2007)

C. Gamble et al.

The archaeological and genetic foundations of the European population during the late glacial: implications for ‘Agricultural Thinking’

Cambridge Archaeological Journal

(2005)

S. Helle et al.

Climatic variability and the population dynamics of historical hunter–gatherers: the case of Sami of Northern Finland

American Journal of Human Biology

(2007)

J. Henrich

Demography and cultural evolution: how adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses: the Tasmanian case

American Antiquity

(2004)

E. Hertell

Ekologiat ja maatalouden alku Suomessa

K. Hill et al.

Ache Life History: The Ecology and Demography of a Foraging People

(1996)

S. Holdaway et al.

Cyclical patterns in the Pleistocene human occupation of Southwest Tasmania

Archaeology in Oceania

(1995)

J. Holopainen et al.

Little Ice Age farming in Finland: preindustrial agriculture on the edge of the Grim Reaper's Scythe

Human Ecology

(2009)

A. Itkonen et al.

8000-year history of palaeoproductivity in a large boreal lake

Journal of Paleolimnology

(1999)

R.L. Kelly

The Foraging Spectrum. Diversity in Hunter–Gatherer Lifeways

(1995)

R.A. Kittles et al.

Autosomal, mitochondrial, and Y chromosome DNA variation in Finland: evidence for a male-specific bottleneck

American Journal of Physical Anthropology

(1999)

P. Lagerås

The Ecology of Expansion and Abandonment: Medieval and Post-medieval Agriculture and Settlement in a Landscape Perspective

(2007)

M. Lavento

Chronology without types and cultures, interpreting the prehistory of Kainuu on the basis of radiocarbon dates

S. Mays

The Archaeology of Human Bones

(1998)

M. Nuñez

On Subneolithic pottery and its adoption in late Mesolithic Finland

Fennoscandia Archaeologica VII

(1990)

Cited by (84)

Chronology and properties of macrocharcoal sequestered in boreal forest soils since deglaciation (southeast of the Kola Peninsula)
2024, Catena
Fire relentlessly modifies the belowground pool of pyrogenic carbon (PyC) in boreal ecosystems. However, only a few soils offer a consistent record of PyC accumulation. Here, we report on the Holocene-scale record of biomass burning and PyC sequestration in the paleosoils of dry topographic hollows at the Keiva ice-marginal landform. We combine soil stratigraphy, radiocarbon dating, and chemical analyses to explore the chronology and properties of macrocharcoal that accumulated in soils for millennia. The most ancient pyrogenic horizons refer to 10,700–10,200 cal BP. They contain charred remnants of well-pronounced root systems as a part of the paleosoil, suggesting enough biomass for intensive burning and significant PyC sink into soils soon after deglaciation. The major phase of woody biomass burning occurred during 7000–5000 cal BP and resulted in the abundant deposition of charcoal in topographic hollows. Soil macrocharcoal maintained a remarkably consistent concentration of total organic carbon (70.70 ± 2.96 %) over the millennial timescale. Its conservation was strengthened by burial in dry sandy soils soon after the fire. Raman spectra of the least weathered charcoal fragments of various ages indicate that intensive biomass burning occurred regularly in the Holocene. Capacity to form pyrogenic archives of Keiva II was predetermined by glacial-associated features like kettle topography and their postglacial modification. Rich PyC record of Keiva II highlights the significance of this landform for soil-based paleofire studies in eastern Fennoscandia.
A multiproxy approach to understanding the impact of the Storegga tsunami upon Mesolithic hunter-fisher-gatherers across different regions of western Norway
2024, Quaternary Science Reviews
The Storegga tsunami (c. 8150 cal BP) is geologically well attested from various isolation basins across the west Norwegian coast. Ascertaining the impact it had upon the Mesolithic peoples who lived through it, however, remains a difficult proposition; one further complicated by broadly synchronic processes of climate change and sea-level rise. This paper presents a regional scale approach to addressing this matter through a multiproxy study comprising: 1) the performance of a new numerical tsunami run-up simulation for six different focus areas; 2) characterising the impact of the tsunami upon key resource base ecosystems; 3) characterising the potential for complication arising from contemporaneous processes of environmental change caused by the ‘8.2 ka BP event', and sea-level rise associated with the early-mid Holocene ‘Tapes’ transgression, and 4) the reconstruction of temporal traditions in site location relative to the contemporary palaeoshoreline within the six focus areas used for the numerical simulation.
Severity of run-up and inundation is found to be acutely variable according to coastal geomorphology and topography, bathymetry, and proximity to the propagation centre. Although the tsunami may have had a severely negative impact upon some coastal inhabitants and ecosystems, it is not possible from current evidence to reliably infer unequivocal impacts relating to the tsunami through the archaeological record, nor is it clear that impact upon key ecosystem components was necessarily lasting, widespread, or even entirely negative for coastal hunter-fisher-gatherers. Variability in projected run-up and settlement histories highlight the appeal of regionally based approaches to reconstructing impact, at least where data resolution may permit. The tsunami does not appear to have prompted a lasting shift away from coastally oriented ways of life.
Source-sink dynamics drove punctuated adoption of early pottery in Arctic Europe under diverging socioecological conditions
2023, Quaternary Science Reviews
What drives the adoption of pottery amongst prehistoric foragers in high-latitude environments? Following the long-running interests of archaeology in explaining the origin and dispersal of new technologies, recent years have seen growing efforts to understand what drove the emergence and expansion of early hunter-gatherer pottery use across northern Eurasia. However, many regional dimensions to this continental-scale phenomenon remain poorly understood. Initial pottery adoption has often been explained as a generic cultural response to warming climates and the growing diversity of food resources, yet resolving challenges of food security during seasonal shortfalls or general climatic downturns may have provided alternative motivations. It is also becoming clear that many regions experienced more complex patterns of pottery adoption and that many resist simplistic monocausal interpretations. In this paper we deploy a Human Ecodynamics framework to examine what drove the punctuated adoption of two early pottery traditions into Arctic Maritime Europe, which were separated by a multi-millennial ceramic hiatus – Early Northern Comb Ware (ENCW) and Asbestos Tempered Ware (ATW). Our multi-proxy approach involves the revision of pottery chronologies to clarify the timing and ecological context for each dispersal, combined with analysis of technological and functional dimensions of the ceramic traditions to understand the contrasting social organization of these technologies. Our results confirm that ENCW expanded at a time of increased locational investment and ecological abundance in the region, while ATW spread in a series of smaller and more intermittent waves in the context of a major ecological downturn and alongside a return to a high-mobility lifestyle. Finally, we use the concept of “source-sink dynamics” to suggest that both dispersals were driven by the same underlying process. This involved major climatic fluctuations triggering small-scale population transfers from lake and riverine settings of western Russia, Finland and the Eastern Baltic region via interior areas and through to the Arctic Norwegian coastline, a persistent process that is also well-documented in later historical periods. Our results highlight the crucial importance of bridging-scale case studies as these have the “unsettling” potential to highlight deeper problems of equifinality. In this case, they reveal that two broadly similar material traditions spread into the same regions, albeit in the context of strikingly different environmental and behavioural conditions.
Spatio-temporal demographic dynamics of the human populations from Northwest Patagonia and central Chile during the Pleistocene-Holocene
2022, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Our goal is to study the spatio-temporal changes in human demographic density in Northwest Patagonia and central Chile throughout the Late Pleistocene-Holocene using geo-referenced absolute dates. Given the heterogeneous environmental and cultural characteristics of this region, differences in the demographic dynamics across geographic areas are expected. Using 1,284 absolute dates we explored different null and continuous piecewise linear (CPL) models of regional population change. We also estimated density curves along with a local geometric growth rate analysis. The best fit model was a flexible CPL model, showing an initial increase in population density between ca. 15,500–12,500 years BP, a second rise after 6,500 years BP and a third increase after 2,500 years BP, although disparate spatio-temporal changes in the relative density were found. These results were robust when the effect of potential biases was considered –e.g., dates with large errors, marine-reservoir and old-wood effects– and the frequency distribution of absolute dates and sites were estimated. We observed significant spatio-temporal changes in human population density, which might be related to the complex environmental and cultural changes: the megafaunal extinction, the incorporation of marine resources and the acquisition of techniques for cultivating and processing food. The results of this study remark that, compared to other types of data, the use of absolute dates allows paleo-demographic reconstructions at regional geographical scales with higher spatial and temporal resolution.
Moving in and moving out: Explaining final Pleistocene-Early Holocene hunter-gatherer population dynamics on the Korean Peninsula
2022, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
While adaptive responses to ecological settings have been the focus of traditional approaches to the spatial organization of mobile hunter-gatherers, social factors also affect the positioning of bands. Hunter-gatherers position themselves in locations not just to exploit food resources, but also to maintain a certain distance to neighboring bands. Hunter-gatherer spatial organization was an agglomerated consequence of balancing two behaviors: spacing and proximizing. Thus, any given band’s decision to relocate affects other bands’ positioning, possibly resulting in a domino effect on a regional scale. We explain population fluctuations in Korea from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the early Holocene. The population history of southern Korea is characterized by an increasing occupational density during the LGM and population decline in periods of climatic amelioration. Contrasting this pattern to the population fluctuations observed in the northern latitudes of continental East Asia, we suggest that population increase in southern Korea during the LGM resulted from the southward movement of a wider hunter-gatherer network. As sea levels rose during the post-LGM, the network moved to the north and bands on the southern Korean peninsula moved north to avoid isolation. This process explains depopulation on the peninsula during the post-LGM and early Holocene.
Final Pleistocene and early Holocene population dynamics and the emergence of pottery on the Korean Peninsula
2022, Quaternary International
The final Pleistocene and early Holocene witnessed the emergence of the earliest pottery in East Asia. Despite extensive archaeological research conducted in Korea over the last three decades, the lack of comparable pottery evidence from the early postglacial, let alone the terminal Pleistocene, on the Korean Peninsula remains an archaeological enigma. Rather than anticipating future discoveries, we feel that it is time to explain why early pottery does not appear on the Korean Peninsula and attempt to provide a workable hypothesis focusing on the spatio-temporal dynamics of mobile hunter-gatherer-fisher populations during periods of substantial environmental change. Summed probability distribution and kernel density estimation of radiocarbon dates clearly indicate significant population fluctuations: occupation density increased under cold and dry Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) conditions and declined during warmer post-LGM and postglacial periods. We argue that a significant decline in population is the main reason why Pleistocene and postglacial pottery does not appear in Korea. On the other hand, the establishment of a Neolithic pottery tradition along Korea's coasts were likely associated with the 8.2 ka cooling event.

View all citing articles on Scopus

View full text

Prehistoric population history in eastern Fennoscandia

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Background: reconstructing prehistoric demographic patterns

Radiocarbon date database

Summing of radiocarbon dates

Population proxy distributions and their reliability

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Archaeological Science

Mathematical Biosciences

Forensic Science International

Quaternary Science Reviews

Gene

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Archaeological Science

Marine Geology

Journal of Human Evolution

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Kymittæ: sites, centrality and long-term settlement change in the Kemiönsaari region in SW Finland

Annales Universitatis Turkuensis B

An optimal foraging-based model of hunter–gatherer population dynamics

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Constructing Frames of Reference. An analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Hunter–Gatherer and Environmental Data Sets

Subsistence strategies and early human population history: an evolutionary ecological perspective

World Archaeology

Käännekohtia Suomen esihistoriassa aikavälillä 5100–1000 eKr

Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk

Alkavan rautakauden kulttuurikuva Länsi-Suomessa

Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk

Salinity changes in the central Baltic Sea (NW Europe) over the last 10 000 years

The Holocene

Radiocarbon date frequency as an index of intensity of Paleolithic occupation of Siberia: did humans react predictably to climate oscillations?

Radiocarbon

The archaeological and genetic foundations of the European population during the late glacial: implications for ‘Agricultural Thinking’

Cambridge Archaeological Journal

Climatic variability and the population dynamics of historical hunter–gatherers: the case of Sami of Northern Finland

American Journal of Human Biology

Demography and cultural evolution: how adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses: the Tasmanian case

American Antiquity

Ekologiat ja maatalouden alku Suomessa

Ache Life History: The Ecology and Demography of a Foraging People

Cyclical patterns in the Pleistocene human occupation of Southwest Tasmania

Archaeology in Oceania

Little Ice Age farming in Finland: preindustrial agriculture on the edge of the Grim Reaper's Scythe

Human Ecology

8000-year history of palaeoproductivity in a large boreal lake

Journal of Paleolimnology

The Foraging Spectrum. Diversity in Hunter–Gatherer Lifeways

Autosomal, mitochondrial, and Y chromosome DNA variation in Finland: evidence for a male-specific bottleneck

American Journal of Physical Anthropology

The Ecology of Expansion and Abandonment: Medieval and Post-medieval Agriculture and Settlement in a Landscape Perspective

Chronology without types and cultures, interpreting the prehistory of Kainuu on the basis of radiocarbon dates

The Archaeology of Human Bones

On Subneolithic pottery and its adoption in late Mesolithic Finland

Fennoscandia Archaeologica VII