Evidence for declines in human population during EUP in Western Europe

January 15, 2008 on 9:30 am | Friedrich Braun | Anthropology | | Email This Post | Print this Post

Published online before print January 2, 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas. 0709372104

ANTHROPOLOGY

Evidence for declines in human population densities during the early
Upper Paleolithic in western Europe

Eugène Morin*

Department of Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada
K9J 7B8; and Centre Interuniversitaire d’Études sur les Lettres, les
Arts et les Traditions (CELAT), Département d’Histoire, Laval
University, Québec, QC, Canada G1K 7P4

Communicated by Erik Trinkaus, Washington University, St. Louis, MO,
October 2, 2007 (received for review July 19, 2007)

Abstract

In western Europe, the Middle to Upper Paleolithic (M/UP) transition,
dated between {approx}35,000 and {approx}40,000 radiocarbon years,
corresponded to a period of major human biological and cultural
changes. However, information on human population densities is scarce
for that period.

New faunal data from the high-resolution record of
Saint-Césaire, France, indicate an episode of significant climatic
deterioration during the early Upper Paleolithic (EUP), which also was
associated with a reduction in mammalian species diversity. High
correlations between ethnographic data and mammalian species diversity
suggest that this shift decreased human population densities. Reliance
on reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), a highly fluctuating resource, would
also have promoted declines in human population densities.

These data
suggest that the EUP represented for humans a period of significant
niche contraction in western Europe. In this context, the possibility
that a modern human expansion occurred in this region seems low.
Instead, it is suggested that population bottlenecks, genetic drift,
and gene flow prevailed over human population replacement as
mechanisms of evolution in humans during the EUP.

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