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From: "Robert Suydam" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] 12,700 Years Ago
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 13:47:03 -0500
References: <009e01c8f70d$6edd94f0$6400a8c0@Ken1>
In-Reply-To: <009e01c8f70d$6edd94f0$6400a8c0@Ken1>


Here are some conclusions about European population history based on
radiocarbon dates:

In a recent paper Gamble et al. (2005) used the S2AGES database
of radiocarbon dates for the period from c. 25e8 ka that
they had compiled for western and northern Europe to propose
an outline of the population history of the region during the
Late Glacial period. The object of this paper is to follow up
that study, albeit it on a more limited geographical scale, by
adopting essentially the same approach to trace regional population
histories in three areas of Central and Northern Europe
up into the Neolithic, and in particular beyond the Neolithic
transition on which earlier radiocarbon work by one of us
was focussed (Gkiasta et al., 2003). In our view the results reveal
some striking patterns which have significant implications
for our understanding not just of the beginning of the Neolithic
but more importantly what happened after it.
. . .
On this basis they identified a series of five population
'events' e defined as 'discrete and definable trends in the
proxy data, from which we infer significant changes in the
number and/or distribution of human populations' (ibid.,
197) e over the period c. 25e10 ka (see especially ibid.,
Figs. 3e5). A refugium stage in southern Europe (25e
19 ka BP) was followed by an initial demic expansion
(19.5e16 ka BP), and a main demic expansion into northern
Europe (16e14 ka BP). This in turn was succeeded in northern
Europe by what is interpreted as a period of population stasis
rather than decline (14e12.9 ka BP), until the onset of the
Younger Dryas is associated with a definite population contraction
(12.9e11.5 ka BP), a time when populations in southern
Europe conversely increase (ibid., Fig. 5). The beginning
of the Holocene then corresponds to renewed population
growth in the northern half of Europe, although not universally;
central Europe appears to be an exception.
The paper makes it very clear that expansion and dispersal
are not restricted to populations dependent on a Neolithic
mode of subsistence. Hunter-gatherer populations, like agricultural
ones, responded to new reproductive and colonising
opportunities and equally had to cope with periods of adversity.
These expansions and contractions were clearly related
to climate change, but not necessarily in a straightforward
way, as the authors demonstrate. Whether or not any aspects
of the cultural assemblages of these populations related to
identity marking is immaterial; the repeated expansions and
contractions resulted in changes in cultural assemblages, and
the cultural patterns associated with larger populations are
clearer and more robust (ibid., 208).
. . .
After 5000 cal BC the German data suggest a remarkable
decline in population, to a fraction of its maximum LBK levels,
lasting, with one or two fluctuations, until after 3500 cal BC.
Poland shows a very similar picture although the decline is
not as striking. In Denmark there is no such marked crash although
there is a decline to just over half the maximum
3500 cal BC value at c. 3000 BC, roughly at the transition between
the Middle Neolithic TRB and the Single Grave Culture.
A slight upturn follows, with a more marked decline after
2500 BC. In Poland a sudden rise to a peak at 3500 BC is followed
by a decline to a much lower level in the centuries after
3000 BC, corresponding to the various local Polish versions of
the Corded Ware. Germany by contrast shows a rapid rise to
a new population plateau at c. 3400 BC, maintained until
2500 BC, followed by a marked dip and then a rapid rise again
at a time corresponding to the Bell Beaker culture and the beginning
of the early Bronze Age. The pattern in the final centuries
of the third millennium BC should be treated with some
caution, since in southern Germany and Poland at least this is
already the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, so it is possible
that not all available dates have been included.


Prehistoric population history: from the Late Glacial to the
Late Neolithic in Central and Northern Europe

Stephen Shennan*, Kevan Edinborough

Journal of Archaeological Science 34 (2007) 1339e1345


On 8/5/08, Ken Nordtvedt <> wrote:
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080801152137.htm
>
> Fold this into your ancient population models and prolonged bottlenecks

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