Quaternary Environments and Humans最新文献

{"title":"The Late Quaternary Megafaunal Extinction and Upper Paleolithic cultural changes: A hypothesis for bioenergetic-driven human adaptations","authors":"Miki Ben-Dor,&nbsp;Ran Barkai","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100086","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100086","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Late Quaternary Megafaunal Extinction (LQME) represents one of the most significant ecological transformations of the Pleistocene, occurring between 50 and 12 thousand years ago and coinciding temporally with remarkable cultural innovations during the Upper Paleolithic period. Many researchers have identified the human contribution to the LQME, but no attention was directed at the potential influence of the LQME on humans. We propose a hypothesis linking these phenomena through bioenergetic constraints, specifically the human requirement for dietary fat due to protein metabolism limitations. The LQME's systematic reduction in megafauna (over 100 lbs) availability, animals that provided optimal fat content and energetic returns, may have created selective pressures favoring cultural and behavioral innovations. We suggest that Upper Paleolithic developments including complex projectile technology, dog domestication, geographic expansion, accelerated cultural change, Neanderthal extinction, increased symbolic and ritualistic expression and agricultural origins represent adaptive responses to declining prey size driven by the need to maintain adequate energetic returns and fat intake. This hypothesis builds on the well-established principle that predator-prey relationships drive evolutionary adaptations, applying it to human cultural evolution during a period of systematic change in prey composition due to size decline. While requiring extensive testing, this framework offers a potentially unifying explanation for investigating the relationship between environmental change and human cultural evolution. We emphasize the critical need for fine-scale temporal analyses correlating regional prey decline with specific cultural innovations, comprehensive review of alternative explanatory models, and rigorous testing of proposed causal mechanisms before this hypothesis can be validated.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 4","pages":"Article 100086"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145229892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Animals, environments and humans: Diverse perspectives from the Quaternary","authors":"Prabhin Sukumaran,&nbsp;Christine Hertler,&nbsp;Parth R. Chauhan","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100079","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100079","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 3","pages":"Article 100079"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145095309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Two years of Quaternary Environments and Humans: Achievements, directions, and new challenges","authors":"Andrea Zerboni,&nbsp;Silvia M. Bello,&nbsp;Fumie Iizuka,&nbsp;Jan Kolar,&nbsp;Thijs van Kolfschoten","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100082","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100082","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 3","pages":"Article 100082"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145095308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From open landscapes to forest refugia: Human encroachment and climate change as drivers of red deer (Cervus elaphus) niche shifts over 21,000 years","authors":"Maciej Sykut ,&nbsp;Jens-Christian Svenning ,&nbsp;Alejandro Gloria Ordonez ,&nbsp;Matthew Roy Kerr ,&nbsp;Felix Riede","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100083","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100083","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The red deer (<em>Cervus elaphus</em>) is one of the few remnant species of the European Pleistocene megafauna. It occupies a wide range of habitats across the Holarctic, yet the factors shaping the species’ realized ecological niche over time remain poorly understood. To investigate these dynamics, we analysed published stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from 623 bone collagen samples spanning 21,000 years in Europe. The <em>δ</em>¹³C values, considered as a proxy for feeding habitat, demonstrate that red deer foraged in open landscapes during the Late Pleistocene, whereas in the Holocene they primarily inhabited forested environments. Although <em>δ</em>¹⁵N was expected to reflect dietary changes associated with this habitat shift, our analysis reveals that its variability was more strongly associated with climatic fluctuations. Notably, the species’ isotopic niche expanded from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene but has since contracted toward the present. To assess the factors shaping these niche dynamics, we modelled the influence of mean annual temperature, precipitation, human population density, and elevation. Our results demonstrate that temperature, precipitation, and human activity best explain isotopic variability. Yet, while environmental changes conditioned niche dynamics in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, the marked human demographic expansion of the Middle Holocene led to anthropogenic pressures becoming the dominant driver. Against this backdrop, we propose potential future scenarios for this species, considering its ecological plasticity, human encroachment, and the implications of ongoing environmental change for conservation and rewilding.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 3","pages":"Article 100083"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145009549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the environmental and cultural consequences of the 8.2 ka cooling event in Kyushu, Southwestern Japan","authors":"Junzo Uchiyama ,&nbsp;Mitsuhiro Kuwahata ,&nbsp;Felix Riede ,&nbsp;Peter D. Jordan","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100081","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100081","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Japan’s rich archaeological record, supported by well-established chronological and typological frameworks, offers valuable opportunities to investigate prehistoric socio-cultural responses to climate change, although comprehensive studies remain limited. This exploratory paper examines the impact of climatic disruptions—particularly the 8.2 ka event—on Jomon foragers in Kyushu, aiming to develop an analytical framework and identify future research directions. The 8.2 ka event is situated within a longer socio-ecological trajectory extending from the onset of the Holocene (11.7 ka) to the Kikai-Akahoya (K-Ah) super-eruption (7.3 ka). Early Holocene Kyushu is typically characterised by the emergence of large, village-based foraging communities, whose abrupt decline has been attributed to the K-Ah eruption, often considered a cultural and demographic watershed. However, this study reconsiders that narrative by comparing environmental changes with archaeological trends in population, settlement, and subsistence. Methods include (a) reviewing environmental history literature; (b) assessing demographic patterns through settlement data and technological trends; and (c) analysing lithic tools and faunal remains at key sites. Our findings suggest a more complex sequence structured by three tempos of environmental change: (1) the gradual postglacial northward move of nut-bearing deciduous forests; (2) short-term climatic downturns, including the 8.2 ka event and other Bond Events; and (3) abrupt volcanic impacts. Each phase appears to have triggered cumulative and adaptive socio-cultural responses. We tentatively conclude that the 8.2 ka event impacted communities already undergoing long-term adaptation to dynamic and unstable ecological conditions, shaped by both environmental constraints and opportunities. These groups responded in cyclical ways to different tempos of change. Ultimately, we argue that the 8.2 ka event in Kyushu should be examined as part of a broader trajectory of socio-ecological transformation, rather than as an isolated moment of major disruption.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 3","pages":"Article 100081"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144813967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What’s in a name? The messy taxonomy of Oryza sp. and how it has impacted our archaeobotanical modelling of rice domestication","authors":"J. Bates","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100080","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100080","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The domestication of our major cereals has been the focus of numerous branches of science. While some, such as wheat and barley, have fairly established pathways and histories, others remain open to debate, and <em>Oryza sativa</em>, Asian rice, ranks high amongst them. Two main hypotheses have arisen – that rice was domesticated initially in China and carried the genes for domestication to other regions as the crop was traded during the Bronze Age (often called the ‘proto-indica’ hypothesis), the other that rice was independently domesticated in China forming <em>japonica</em> and also in India forming <em>indica</em>. Both hypotheses however have their own challenges around data, but at the heart of them is a key issue that they are not starting at the same taxonomic base – the founder wild ancestor of rice in India remains debated. In this paper the messy taxonomies of rice, both wild and domesticated, are outlined, and the implications of this on the archaeological modelling of rice domestication are unpacked. Only once an established and agreed foundation for assessing these two hypotheses is agreed can they be addressed. The paper outlines how both hypotheses need to be addressed moving forwards using archaeological, (archaeo)botanical, archaeochemical, (archaeo)genetic and other forms of data moving forwards.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 3","pages":"Article 100080"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144779323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Age woodland composition and exploitation in the Great Hungarian Plain, East‐Central Europe","authors":"Gabriella Darabos ,&nbsp;Máté Róbert Merkl ,&nbsp;Pál Raczky ,&nbsp;András Füzesi ,&nbsp;Attila Gyucha ,&nbsp;Danielle J. Riebe ,&nbsp;William A. Parkinson ,&nbsp;Magdalena Moskal-del-Hoyo ,&nbsp;Szilvia Fábián ,&nbsp;Karola Molnár ,&nbsp;Gabriella Hajdrik ,&nbsp;Tamás Hajdu ,&nbsp;Anett Gémes ,&nbsp;Gábor Csüllög ,&nbsp;Edit Mester ,&nbsp;János Dani ,&nbsp;Vajk Szeverényi ,&nbsp;Viktória Kiss ,&nbsp;Přemysl Bobek ,&nbsp;Dénes Saláta ,&nbsp;Enikő Katalin Magyari","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100078","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100078","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the prehistoric communities of the Great Hungarian Plain (GHP), the exploitation of forest steppe and floodplain woodlands started at ∼6000 cal BC. So far, only scattered and irregular wood charcoal analyses have been performed on Holocene archaeological sites, therefore the species composition of the GHP woodlands is known mainly from pollen records. This study aims to fill this gap by systematic sampling and analysis of key Early, Middle and Late Neolithic, and Copper and Middle Bronze Age archaeological sites. Pollen records from the vicinity of some archaeological sites accompany the charcoal assemblages along with potential vegetation and soil maps. Our results show that oak (<em>Quercus</em> sp.) was dominant in the floodplain and forest steppe, used as construction timber and firewood. Both high and low floodplain forest woody elements (<em>Populus, Salix, Fraxinus</em>) were represented. Elm species (<em>Ulmus</em> spp.) were widespread and often co-dominated the charcoal assemblages. In the long-term charcoal assemblages of the Late Neolithic SE GHP, <em>Ulmus</em> was more frequent than in the NE GHP. Soil and potential vegetation maps of these sites show meadow soil predominance with occasional chernozem meadow soils. Floodplain woodlands predominate in the potential vegetation with the likely presence of <em>U. laevis</em> and <em>U. minor</em> today corroborating the predominance of alluvial forests in SE Hungary during the Neolithic likely with high amplitude water table fluctuation. During the Early Chalcolithic (4500–4000 cal BC), we found a significant decline in <em>Ulmus</em> in the SE GHP both in the pollen and charcoal assemblages suggesting a climate change and/or pathogen induced elm-decline. In comparison with the Balkan region, we demonstrated that the SE border of the GHP was a major environmental barrier, north of which vast riparian and alluvial forests were alternating with steppe oak woods. The Early Neolithic communities had to adapt to this environment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 3","pages":"Article 100078"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144614575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Holocene land cover change in the Pannonian (East-Central Europe) forest steppe: The role of prehistoric land exploitation phases","authors":"Ilona Pál ,&nbsp;Enikő K. Magyari ,&nbsp;János Korponai ,&nbsp;Gábor Mesterházy ,&nbsp;Ákos Bede-Fazekas ,&nbsp;Cristina Covătaru ,&nbsp;Gabriella Darabos ,&nbsp;Gusztáv Jakab ,&nbsp;András Füzesi ,&nbsp;Pál Raczky","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100077","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100077","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Pollen analytical studies of Holocene lake and mire sediments provide valuable information on past forest cover changes and help us resolving the long-debated origin of temperate forest steppes in Europe. In this paper we contribute to this debate via the pollen and multi-proxy palaeoecological (macrofossil, charcoal, major and trace element) analyses of a paleolake (Kokad Mire) situated in the temperate deciduous forest steppe zone of the Great Hungarian Plain (GHP). Diverse soil types and microhabitats in this area attracted arable farming communities since the Neolithic. By comparing the local archaeological record with the pollen-based land cover, vegetation composition and fire history changes, and invoking other pollen-based Holocene land cover records from the GHP, we analyze the climatic versus anthropogenic origin of the forest steppe vegetation, determine the ages of significant forest clearance episodes, and examine the relationship between paleo-proxy inferred land use and prehistoric/historic settlement density. Our results suggest that the current potential forest steppe vegetation of the eastern GHP had natural climatic and edaphic origin in the Early and Mid-Holocene, which was maintained by anthropogenic deforestation in the Late Holocene. Without human impact, forest cover must have increased during the last 3000 years, and likely even earlier, since the Early Bronze Age. We found evidence for episodic land use during the Neolithic: Middle and early Late Neolithic (7600–7400 cal BP) coppice management and pastoral farming. Deforestation intensified from 3900 cal BP (during the Bronze Age). We demonstrated very early hemp (<em>Cannabis sativa</em>) cultivation between 5970–5450 cal BP (Middle Copper Age) likely attributable to eastern nomadic pastoral groups (pre-Yamnaya) who left behind several burial mounds in the region. We also showed that the lake was used for hemp retting between 2450–2000 cal BP by the local Celtic groups. The analysis of three pollen records from the GHP furthermore revealed that prehistoric cultures had different occupation intensities until the Late Bronze Age with localized forest clearances followed by afforestation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 3","pages":"Article 100077"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144501496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reflections of Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age environments, land use and pile dwelling activities in a new palynological record from the varved sediments of Lake Mondsee, Austria","authors":"Anna Schubert ,&nbsp;Stefan Lauterbach ,&nbsp;Christian Leipe ,&nbsp;Franziska Kobe ,&nbsp;Achim Brauer ,&nbsp;Pavel E. Tarasov","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100076","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100076","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite fundamental progress in geoarchaeological research in the Austrian Salzkammergut region, there are still many unanswered questions regarding human activity and its relationship to climate change and the diverse environments during prehistoric times. A new palynological record from the varved composite sediment core MO-05 from the south-eastern part of Lake Mondsee (47°49′N, 13°24′E, 481 m above sea level) provides palaeoecological evidence of a long-term, although possibly discontinuous, Late Neolithic/Copper Age habitation around the study site between ca. 6000 and 4000 cal BP. Agricultural activity during this interval focused on animal husbandry, which had only a minor impact on the natural forest vegetation. A particularly low level of local human activity is indicated at the end of the Late Neolithic between 4200 and 4000 cal BP while palynological indicators of deforestation and agriculture show a re-increase in human activity during the Early to early Middle Bronze Age (ca. 3950–3460 cal BP). Without clear evidence of human activity in the vicinity of the coring site, the increasing agricultural activities were most likely restricted to areas more distant from Lake Mondsee. The end of the Late Neolithic/Copper Age habitation phase with evidence of animal husbandry and local fire activity at 4200 cal BP coincides with the Northgrippian–Meghalayan transition, which is marked by a gradual change in vegetation distribution expressed by a shift to lower scores of the dominant cool mixed (COMX) forest biome. This shift to a cooler and wetter climate regime might have caused the decrease in human activity around this time.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100076"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144290813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Archaeometric analysis of an early copper dagger from Kozareva Mogila, Western Black Sea region","authors":"Petya Georgieva,&nbsp;Yordan Milev","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100073","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100073","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the fifth millennium BC (the Eneolithic period), copper extractive metallurgy developed in the region of Thrace and the Lower Danube. Massive tools and weapons were produced from copper. At the end of the fifth millennium, this development stopped, and the cultures associated with it disappeared. A period of cultural transformation followed, as a result of which the Early Bronze Age cultures appeared, which developed a different type of metallurgy, beginning with the so-called arsenic bronze. This transitional period lasted several hundred years. There is relatively little information on it, particularly for the region of Thrace. The reason for this is that after the end of the third phase of the Late Eneolithic Kodjadermen-Gumelniţa-Karanovo VI culture, a hiatus usually follows in the settlement mounds, above which the Early Bronze Age layers follow. In Kozareva Mogila, a separate layer of phase IV of the culture was discovered for the first time in a settlement mound. It represents the end of the Eneolithic and the beginning of the transitional period to the Bronze Age. This continuity in cultural development indicates that the old population was preserved. Here, we present a copper dagger from the site, originating from this layer, in which only materials from phase IV of the Late Eneolithic are present. A sample from the dagger was studied at the ‘Curt-Engelhorn’ Zentrum für Archäometrie, Mannheim, Germany. An XRF analysis was conducted to determine the chemical composition, and a lead isotope analysis was done to determine possible sources of raw material. The provenance study allowed the dagger to be related to some of the copper deposits in the Strandzha area. The XRF analysis showed that the artefact is made of copper with 0.54 % As, which is probably due to the deliberate use of copper ores with naturally occurring arsenic.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100073"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144222731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}