title: Rapid climate change did not cause population collapse at the end of the European Bronze Age.
abstract: The impact of rapid climate change on contemporary human populations is of global concern. To contextualize our understanding of human responses to rapid climate change it is necessary to examine the archeological record during past climate transitions. One episode of abrupt climate change has been correlated with societal collapse at the end of the northwestern European Bronze Age. We apply new methods to interrogate archeological and paleoclimate data for this transition in Ireland at a higher level of precision than has previously been possible. We analyze archeological (14)C dates to demonstrate dramatic population collapse and present high-precision proxy climate data, analyzed through Bayesian methods, to provide evidence for a rapid climatic transition at ca. 750 calibrated years B.C. Our results demonstrate that this climatic downturn did not initiate population collapse and highlight the nondeterministic nature of human responses to past climate change.
authors.affiliation: School of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, United Kingdom; i.armit@bradford.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Armit
authors.affiliation: School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom;
authors.forename: Graeme T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Swindles
authors.affiliation: Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland; and.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.affiliation: School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Gill
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Plunkett
authors.affiliation: School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Maarten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Blaauw
mesh_terms: D001106:Archaeology / Q000379:methods*; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D017753:Ecosystem; D005843:Geography; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland; D011157:Population Dynamics; D055110:Radiometric Dating / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes
keywords: Bronze Age; climate change; demography; prehistory; radiocarbon dating