title: Exploring the impact of climate variability during the Last Glacial Maximum on the pattern of human occupation of Iberia.
abstract: The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was a global climate event, which had significant repercussions for the spatial distribution and demographic history of prehistoric populations. In Eurasia, the LGM coincides with a potential bottleneck for modern humans and may mark the divergence date for Asian and European populations (Keinan et al., 2007). In this research, the impact of climate variability on human populations in the Iberian Peninsula during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is examined with the aid of downscaled high-resolution (16 × 16 km) numerical climate experiments. Human sensitivity to short time-scale (inter-annual) climate variability during this key time period, which follows the initial modern human colonisation of Eurasia and the extinction of the Neanderthals, is tested using the spatial distribution of archaeological sites. Results indicate that anatomically modern human populations responded to small-scale spatial patterning in climate variability, specifically inter-annual variability in precipitation levels as measured by the standard precipitation index. Climate variability at less than millennial scale, therefore, is shown to be an important component of ecological risk, one that played a role in regulating the spatial behaviour of prehistoric human populations and consequently affected their social networks.
authors.affiliation: Département d'Anthropologie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Centre-Ville, QC, Canada H3C 3J7. Electronic address: a.burke@umontreal.ca.
authors.forename: Ariane
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Burke
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement LSCE/IPSL - CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, CE Saclay, l'Orme des Merisiers, bâtiment 701, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Guillaume
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Levavasseur
authors.affiliation: Départment de Sciences Biologiques, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Centre-Ville, QC, Canada H3C 3J7.
authors.forename: Patrick M A
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: James
authors.affiliation: Département d'Anthropologie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Centre-Ville, QC, Canada H3C 3J7.
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Guiducci
authors.affiliation: Département d'Anthropologie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Centre-Ville, QC, Canada H3C 3J7.
authors.forename: Manuel Arturo
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Izquierdo
authors.affiliation: Département d'Anthropologie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Centre-Ville, QC, Canada H3C 3J7.
authors.forename: Lauriane
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bourgeon
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement LSCE/IPSL - CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, CE Saclay, l'Orme des Merisiers, bâtiment 701, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Masa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kageyama
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement LSCE/IPSL - CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, CE Saclay, l'Orme des Merisiers, bâtiment 701, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Gilles
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ramstein
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement LSCE/IPSL - CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, CE Saclay, l'Orme des Merisiers, bâtiment 701, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Mathieu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vrac
mesh_terms: D001106:Archaeology; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011174:Portugal; D013030:Spain
keywords: Climate modeling; Glacial refugium; Palaeoclimate; Population distribution; Spatial analysis; Variability selection; Western Europe