ArticleNature communications2020
Marine resource abundance drove pre-agricultural population increase in Stone Age Scandinavia.
Article in Nature communications, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Life on the edge: Mesolithic population size and viability on Malta.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- The Evolutionary History of the Extinct Baltic Sea Harp Seal Population.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Stable isotope analyses of amino acids reveal the importance of aquatic resources to Mediterranean coastal hunter-gatherers.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Archaeological evidence of resource utilisation of the great whales over the past two millennia: A systematic review protocol.PloS one · 2023Article
- Marine abundance and its prehistoric past in the Baltic.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Reply to "Marine abundance and its prehistoric past in the Baltic".Nature communications · 2022Article
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10 authors.
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Abstract
How climate and ecology affect key cultural transformations remains debated in the context of long-term socio-cultural development because of spatially and temporally disjunct climate and archaeological records. The introduction of agriculture triggered a major population increase across Europe. However, in Southern Scandinavia it was preceded by ~500 years of sustained population growth. Here we show that this growth was driven by long-term enhanced marine production conditioned by the Holocene Thermal Maximum, a time of elevated temperature, sea level and salinity across coastal waters. We identify two periods of increased marine production across trophic levels (P1 7600-7100 and P2 6400-5900 cal. yr BP) that coincide with markedly increased mollusc collection and accumulation of shell middens, indicating greater marine resource availability. Between ~7600-5900 BP, intense exploitation of a warmer, more productive marine environment by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers drove cultural development, including maritime technological innovation, and from ca. 6400-5900 BP, underpinned a ~four-fold human population growth.
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