Modelling Human-Environment Interactions in and beyond Prehistoric Europe

This book offers insight into the relationship between prehistoric and protohistoric human populations and the world around them. It reconstructs key aspects of the palaeoenvironment from large-scale drivers of environmental conditions, such as climate, to more regional variables such as vegetation cover and faunal communities. The volume underscores how computational archaeology is leading the way in the study of past human-environment interactions across spatial and chronological scales.

With the increased availability of high-resolution climate models, agent-based modelling, palaeoecological proxies and the mature use of Geographic Information System in ecological modelling, archaeologists working in interdisciplinary settings are well-positioned to explore the intersection of human systems and environmental affordances and constraints. These methodological advancements provide a better understanding of the role humans played in past ecosystems both in terms of their impact upon the environment and, in return, the impact of environmental conditions on human systems. They may also allow us to infer past ecological knowledge and land-use patterns that are historically contingent, rather than environmentally determined. This volume gathers contributions that combine reconstructions of past environments and archeological data with a view to exploring their complex interactions at different scales and invites scholars from varying disciplines and backgrounds to present and compare different modelling approaches.

Autorentext
Samuel Seuru is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology, University of Montreal, Canada. His research explores small game exploitation and human diet breadth during the Upper Paleolithic in the Iberian Peninsula, with the aid of Agent-Based Modelling.

Benjamin Albouy is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology, University of Montreal, Canada. His research explores the relationship between Neanderthals and their environment. In his doctoral thesis, he is studying the impact of abrupt climate change on the last Neanderthal populations in Europe.

Inhalt
Preface: (Ariane Burke & Felix Riede).- Introduction: (Benjamin Albouy, Samuel Seuru & Solène Boisard).- Part I: Top-down approaches.- Chapter 1: Refloating the Aegean Lost Dryland: An Affordance-Based GIS Approach to Explore the Interaction Between Hominins and the Palaeolandscape By Peny Tsakanikou & John McNabb.- Chapter 2: The last of them. Investigating the paleogeography of the last Neanderthals in Europe (Marine Isotopic Stage 3; 60-27 ky BP) By Benjamin Albouy, Ariane Burke & Julien Riel-Salvatore.- Chapter 3: Investigating the impact of environmental change on the Late Glacial re-peopling of northern Europe using paleoclimate modeling By Jasper Pedersen Borre, Johann Assmann Jakob, Normand Signe, Dirk Nikolaus Karger& Felix Riede.- Chapter 4: About people and loess. Modeling dust emissions to understand the peopling of NorthWestern France during the Last Glacial Maximum By James King, Solène Boisard, Pierre Antoine, Sylvie Coutard, Amélie Chaput, Philippe Gauvin-Bourdon, Ariane Burke & Olivier Moine.- Chapter 5: The impact of Magdalenian hunter-gatherers on their environment By Claudine Gravel-Miguel.- Chapter 6: Simulating the past to understand present (point) patterns: a case study from final palaeolithic Schleswig-Holstein By Sonja Grimm, Berit Valentin Eriksen, Gerrit Günther, Sascha Krüger, Mara-Julia Weber, Markus Wild & Daniel Knitter 11.- Chapter 7: Modeling cultural landscape evolution of the early farmers at the Great Eurasian Steppe fringe: a case study of Middle Southern Buh River catchment in VI-IV mil. BC By Dmytro Kiosak & Simon Radchenk.- Part: II Bottom-up approaches.- Chapter 8: Modeling Gaia: towards an actor-network modeling framework in Archeology By Mauritz Ertsen.- Chapter 9: Rethinking the importance of European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) in the human diet during the Upper Palaeolithic in Iberia By Samuel Seuru, Liliana Perez & Burke Ariane.- Chapter 10: Modeling the landscape evolution and land-use in early Bronze age at Hacilar, In Southwest Anatolia By Arkan Bülent & nci Nurgül Özdoru.- Chapter 11: Simulating subsistence and resource exploitation strategies in Iron Age to Hellenistic communities in Southwest Anatolia By Stef Boogers & Dries Daems.- Chapter 12: Exploring environmental determinism with Agent-Based Model of settlement choice By Kaarel Sikk.- Conclusion: (Samuel Seuru & Benjamin Albouy).