Palaeodemographic modelling supports a population bottleneck during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in Iberia.

Fernández-López de Pablo, Javier and Gutiérrez-Roig, Mario and Gómez-Puche, Madalena and McLaughlin, Rowan and Silva, Fabio and Lozano, Sergi (2019) 'Palaeodemographic modelling supports a population bottleneck during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in Iberia.' Nature Communications, 10. ISSN 2041-1723

Preview

Text
Palaeodemographic modelling supports a population bottleneck during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in Iberia.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (2MB) | Preview

Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09833-3

Abstract

Demographic change lies at the core of debates on genetic inheritance and resilience to climate change of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Here we analyze the radiocarbon record of Iberia to reconstruct long-term changes in population levels and test different models of demographic growth during the Last Glacial-Interglacial transition. Our best fitting demographic model is composed of three phases. First, we document a regime of exponential population increase during the Late Glacial warming period (c.16.6-12.9 kya). Second, we identify a phase of sustained population contraction and stagnation, beginning with the cold episode of the Younger Dryas and continuing through the first half of the Early Holocene (12.9-10.2 kya). Finally, we report a third phase of density-dependent logistic growth (10.2-8 kya), with rapid population increase followed by stabilization. Our results support a population bottleneck hypothesis during the Last Glacial-Interglacial transition, providing a demographic context to interpret major shifts of prehistoric genetic groups in south-west Europe.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Humans, Models, Theoretical, Archaeology, Paleontology, History, Ancient, Europe, Radiometric Dating, Climate Change, Human Migration
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Health > Mathematical Sciences, Department of
Depositing User:	Elements
Date Deposited:	07 Sep 2020 13:59
Last Modified:	07 Sep 2020 14:15
URI:	http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/27323

Actions (login required)

View Item

Altmetric