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Source-sink dynamics drove punctuated adoption of early pottery in Arctic Europe under diverging socioecological conditions

Kirkeng Jørgensen, Erlend ; Eilertsen Arntzen, Johan ; Skandfer, Marianne ; Llewellin, Madison ; Isaksson, Sven and Jordan, Peter LU orcid (2023) In Quaternary Science Reviews 299.
Abstract
What drives the adoption of pottery amongst prehistoric foragers in high-latitude environments? Following the long-running interests of archaeology in explaining the origin and dispersal of new technologies, recent years have seen growing efforts to understand what drove the emergence and expansion of early hunter-gatherer pottery use across northern Eurasia. However, many regional dimensions to this continental-scale phenomenon remain poorly understood. Initial pottery adoption has often been explained as a generic cultural response to warming climates and the growing diversity of food resources, yet resolving challenges of food security during seasonal shortfalls or general climatic downturns may have provided alternative motivations. It... (More)
What drives the adoption of pottery amongst prehistoric foragers in high-latitude environments? Following the long-running interests of archaeology in explaining the origin and dispersal of new technologies, recent years have seen growing efforts to understand what drove the emergence and expansion of early hunter-gatherer pottery use across northern Eurasia. However, many regional dimensions to this continental-scale phenomenon remain poorly understood. Initial pottery adoption has often been explained as a generic cultural response to warming climates and the growing diversity of food resources, yet resolving challenges of food security during seasonal shortfalls or general climatic downturns may have provided alternative motivations. It is also becoming clear that many regions experienced more complex patterns of pottery adoption and that many resist simplistic monocausal interpretations. In this paper we deploy a Human Ecodynamics framework to examine what drove the punctuated adoption of two early pottery traditions into Arctic Maritime Europe, which were separated by a multi-millennial ceramic hiatus – Early Northern Comb Ware (ENCW) and Asbestos Tempered Ware (ATW). Our multi-proxy approach involves the revision of pottery chronologies to clarify the timing and ecological context for each dispersal, combined with analysis of technological and functional dimensions of the ceramic traditions to understand the contrasting social organization of these technologies. Our results confirm that ENCW expanded at a time of increased locational investment and ecological abundance in the region, while ATW spread in a series of smaller and more intermittent waves in the context of a major ecological downturn and alongside a return to a high-mobility lifestyle. Finally, we use the concept of “source-sink dynamics” to suggest that both dispersals were driven by the same underlying process. This involved major climatic fluctuations triggering small-scale population transfers from lake and riverine settings of western Russia, Finland and the Eastern Baltic region via interior areas and through to the Arctic Norwegian coastline, a persistent process that is also well-documented in later historical periods. Our results highlight the crucial importance of bridging-scale case studies as these have the “unsettling” potential to highlight deeper problems of equifinality. In this case, they reveal that two broadly similar material traditions spread into the same regions, albeit in the context of strikingly different environmental and behavioural conditions. (Less)
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author
; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Early pottery, Hunter-gatherers, Arctic maritime Europe, Early northern comb ware, Asbestos tempered ware, Organic residue analysis, Source-sink dynamics, Human ecodynamics
in
Quaternary Science Reviews
volume
299
article number
107825
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85142714893
ISSN
0277-3791
DOI
10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107825
project
POSTGLACIAL: Comparative Perspectives on Cultural Responses to Postglacial Warming in Northern Eurasia
STONE AGE DEMOGRAPHICS: Multi-Scale Exploration of Population Variations and Dynamics (Northern Fennoscandia)
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
d0f9f066-bb7f-44c4-a3cc-5c541df76d8a
date added to LUP
2022-11-27 11:56:49
date last changed
2023-04-06 00:58:40
@article{d0f9f066-bb7f-44c4-a3cc-5c541df76d8a,
  abstract     = {{What drives the adoption of pottery amongst prehistoric foragers in high-latitude environments? Following the long-running interests of archaeology in explaining the origin and dispersal of new technologies, recent years have seen growing efforts to understand what drove the emergence and expansion of early hunter-gatherer pottery use across northern Eurasia. However, many regional dimensions to this continental-scale phenomenon remain poorly understood. Initial pottery adoption has often been explained as a generic cultural response to warming climates and the growing diversity of food resources, yet resolving challenges of food security during seasonal shortfalls or general climatic downturns may have provided alternative motivations. It is also becoming clear that many regions experienced more complex patterns of pottery adoption and that many resist simplistic monocausal interpretations. In this paper we deploy a Human Ecodynamics framework to examine what drove the punctuated adoption of two early pottery traditions into Arctic Maritime Europe, which were separated by a multi-millennial ceramic hiatus – Early Northern Comb Ware (ENCW) and Asbestos Tempered Ware (ATW). Our multi-proxy approach involves the revision of pottery chronologies to clarify the timing and ecological context for each dispersal, combined with analysis of technological and functional dimensions of the ceramic traditions to understand the contrasting social organization of these technologies. Our results confirm that ENCW expanded at a time of increased locational investment and ecological abundance in the region, while ATW spread in a series of smaller and more intermittent waves in the context of a major ecological downturn and alongside a return to a high-mobility lifestyle. Finally, we use the concept of “source-sink dynamics” to suggest that both dispersals were driven by the same underlying process. This involved major climatic fluctuations triggering small-scale population transfers from lake and riverine settings of western Russia, Finland and the Eastern Baltic region via interior areas and through to the Arctic Norwegian coastline, a persistent process that is also well-documented in later historical periods. Our results highlight the crucial importance of bridging-scale case studies as these have the “unsettling” potential to highlight deeper problems of equifinality. In this case, they reveal that two broadly similar material traditions spread into the same regions, albeit in the context of strikingly different environmental and behavioural conditions.}},
  author       = {{Kirkeng Jørgensen, Erlend and Eilertsen Arntzen, Johan and Skandfer, Marianne and Llewellin, Madison and Isaksson, Sven and Jordan, Peter}},
  issn         = {{0277-3791}},
  keywords     = {{Early pottery; Hunter-gatherers; Arctic maritime Europe; Early northern comb ware; Asbestos tempered ware; Organic residue analysis; Source-sink dynamics; Human ecodynamics}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Quaternary Science Reviews}},
  title        = {{Source-sink dynamics drove punctuated adoption of early pottery in Arctic Europe under diverging socioecological conditions}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107825}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107825}},
  volume       = {{299}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}