Abstract
Prehistoric demography has recently risen to prominence as a potentially explanatory variable for episodes of cultural change as documented in the archaeological and ethnographic record. While this has resulted in a veritable boom in methodological developments seeking to address temporal changes in the relative size of prehistoric populations, little work has focused on the manner in which population dynamics manifests across a spatial dimension. Most recently, the so-called Cologne Protocol has led the way in this endeavour. However, strict requirements of raw-material exchange data as analytical inputs have prevented further applications of the protocol to regions outside of continental Europe. We apply an adjusted approach of the protocol that makes it transferable to cases in other parts of the world, while demonstrating its use by providing comparative benchmarks of previous research on the Late Glacial Final Palaeolithic of southern Scandinavia, and novel insights from the early Holocene pioneer colonization of coastal Norway. We demonstrate again that population size and densities remained fairly low throughout the Late Glacial, and well into the early Holocene. We suggest that such low population densities have played a significant role in shaping what may have been episodes of cultural loss, as well as potentially longer periods of only relatively minor degrees of cultural change.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography’.
Highlights
Numerous instances in the archaeological and ethnographic record point to the slow development [1], sudden introduction [2,3] or sudden disappearance [4,5], of specific cultural traits
We demonstrate again that population size and densities remained fairly low throughout the Late Glacial, and well into the early Holocene
We suggest that such low population densities have played a significant role in shaping what may have been episodes of cultural loss, as well as potentially longer periods of only relatively minor degrees of cultural change
Summary
Numerous instances in the archaeological and ethnographic record point to the slow development [1], sudden introduction [2,3] or sudden disappearance [4,5], of specific cultural traits. Perhaps the most striking difference can be found in the elaboration by Strimling et al [16, p.13 870] who suggests that while ‘genetic information is acquired only once, cultural information can be both abandoned and reacquired during an individual’s lifetime’. This long-term process of acquiring and reacquiring culture, through various forms of social learning [17,18], has led to the proposition that humans have a unique capacity to maintain cumulative culture [19] whereby a previous pool of knowledge in any given population may allow cultural traits to be adjusted, and perhaps even improved, incrementally rather than being invented or re-invented single-handedly. The reason demography has risen to prominence as a potentially explanatory variable for this phenomenon—apart from that it parallels the crucial link to biological change as reflected in gene frequencies [20]—is because while cumulative culture is more maintained in larger populations, owing to its potential for minimizing loss of knowledge in the event stochastic change [1], the opposite is expected for smaller and less connected populations [4]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
