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dc.contributor.authorJørgensen, Erlend Kirkeng
dc.contributor.authorArntzen, Johan Eilertsen
dc.contributor.authorSkandfer, Marianne
dc.contributor.authorLlewelin, madison
dc.contributor.authorIsaksson, Sven
dc.contributor.authorJordan, Peter
dc.date.accessioned2022-11-29T10:03:22Z
dc.date.available2022-11-29T10:03:22Z
dc.date.issued2022-11-25
dc.description.abstractWhat 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.en_US
dc.identifier.citationJørgensen EKJ, Arntzen JE, Skandfer M, Llewelin, Isaksson S, Jordan P. Source-sink dynamics drove punctuated adoption of early pottery in Arctic Europe under diverging socioecological conditions. Quaternary Science Reviews. 2022;299(1)en_US
dc.identifier.cristinIDFRIDAID 2082208
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107825
dc.identifier.issn0277-3791
dc.identifier.issn1873-457X
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10037/27582
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherElsevieren_US
dc.relation.journalQuaternary Science Reviews
dc.rights.accessRightsopenAccessen_US
dc.rights.holderCopyright 2022 The Author(s)en_US
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0en_US
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)en_US
dc.titleSource-sink dynamics drove punctuated adoption of early pottery in Arctic Europe under diverging socioecological conditionsen_US
dc.type.versionpublishedVersionen_US
dc.typeJournal articleen_US
dc.typeTidsskriftartikkelen_US
dc.typePeer revieweden_US


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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)