The UpNorth Project: Environment Context of Late and Final Palaeolithic Dispersals

Summary

Human mobility and environmental interactions at the end of the Palaeolithic were undoubtedly influenced by large-scale and rapid climate change. With the melting of ice sheets and expansion/contraction of ecosystems, new landscapes and resources became available to late and final Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. The UP-NORTH project is examining the dispersal of people and animals into Northern Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum. Using a range of techniques, including stable isotopes, radiocarbon and ancient DNA analyses, UP-NORTH is exploring whether the process(es) of recolonisation and the increasing diversification seen in the lithic and bone industries during the late and final Palaeolithic represent responses to changing environments and resources, or if such changes were independent of one another. UP-NORTH is developing an integrated chronological, palaeoclimatic and palaeoecological framework to explore changing landscapes, and human activity within them. By developing multiple integrated lines of evidence the project provides an insight into the Late-glacial landscape and environment change that Palaeolithic people experienced and evaluates how these may have influenced the decisions they made, particularly in relation to their mobility.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21991