Cultural and palaeoenvironmental changes in late glacial to middle Holocene Europe: Gradual or sudden?

Abstract

In Northern Europe, the Holocene is characterized by climatic and environmental variations. A central question is how hunter-gatherer in different regions coped with these changes. In this article, we explore the temporal co-variance between environmental change and transitions in lithic technology during the Mesolithic of southeastern Norway. The empirical starting point comprises technological analysis of lithic assemblages from sites dated between 11 500 and 6000 cal. BP. We focus on two transitions identified in the lithic assemblages: 1) the introduction of the conical core pressure blade technology and ground macro tool technology, c. 10 300–10 100 cal. BP, and 2) the introduction of microblade production on handle cores and changes in the macro tool assemblage, c. 7700-7500 cal. BP. The main objective is to investigate the factors influencing transitions in material culture, and contribute to the discussion of the complexity and diversity of human-environment interactions during the Mesolithic of Northern Europe. The results from this study contribute to an increasing knowledge on the diversity and complexity of hunter-gatherers relation with environmental and climatic variation, and add more insight to the vital question of how we can understand culture change among past populations.