Kevan Edinborough

ABSTRACT – Following some 30 years of radiocarbon research during which the mathematical principles of 14C-calibration have been on loan to Bayesian statistics, here they are returned to quantum physics. The return is based on recognition that 14C-calibration can be described as a Fourier transform. Following its introduction as such, there is need to reconceptualize the probabilistic 14C-analysis. The main change will be to replace the traditional (one-dimensional) concept of 14C-dating probability by a two-dimensional probability. This is entirely analogous to the definition of probability in quantum physics, where the squared amplitude of a wave function defined in Hilbert space provides a measurable probability of finding the corresponding particle at a certain point in time/space, the so-called Born rule. When adapted to the characteristics of 14C-calibration, as it turns out, the Fourier transform immediately accounts for practically all known so-called quantization properties of archaeological 14C-ages, such as clustering, age-shifting, and amplitude-distortion.

Neolithic stone axeheads from Britain provide an unusually rich, well-provenanced set of evidence with which to consider patterns of prehistoric production and exchange. It is no surprise then that these objects have often been subject to spatial analysis in terms of the relationship between particular stone source areas and the distribution of axeheads made from those stones. At stake in such analysis are important interpretative issues to do with how we view the role of material value, supply, exchange, and demand in prehistoric societies. This paper returns to some of these well-established debates in the light of accumulating British Neolithic evidence and via the greater analytical power and flexibility afforded by recent computational methods. Our analyses make a case that spatial distributions of prehistoric axeheads cannot be explained merely as the result of uneven resource availability in the landscape, but instead reflect the active favouring of particular sources over known alternatives. Above and beyond these patterns, we also demonstrate that more populated parts of Early Neolithic Britain were an increased pull factor affecting the longer-range distribution of these objects.

New radiocarbon (14C) dates suggest a simultaneous appearance of two technologically and geographically distinct axe production practices in Neolithic Britain; igneous open-air quarries in Great Langdale, Cumbria, and from flint mines in southern England at ~4000–3700 cal BC. In light of the recent evidence that farming was introduced at this time by large-scale immigration from northwest Europe, and that expansion within Britain was extremely rapid, we argue that this synchronicity supports this speed of colonization and reflects a knowledge of complex extraction processes and associated exchange networks already possessed by the immigrant groups; long-range connections developed as colonization rapidly expanded. Although we can model the start of these new extraction activities, it remains difficult to estimate how long significant production activity lasted at these key sites given the nature of the record from which samples could be obtained.

The extent to which non-agricultural production in prehistory had cost-benefit motivations has long been a subject of discussion. This paper addresses the topic by looking at the evidence for Neolithic quarrying and mining in Britain and continental northwest Europe and asks whether changing production through time was influenced by changing demand. Radiocarbon dating of mine and quarry sites is used to define periods of use. These are then correlated with a likely first-order source of demand, the size of the regional populations around the mines, inferred from a radiocarbon-based population proxy. There are significant differences between the population and mine-date distributions. Analysis of pollen data using the REVEALS method to reconstruct changing regional land cover patterns shows that in Britain activity at the mines and quarries is strongly correlated with evidence for forest clearance by incoming Neolithic populations, suggesting that mine and quarry production were a response to the demand that this created. The evidence for such a correlation between mining and clearance in continental northwest Europe is much weaker. Here the start of large-scale mining may be a response to the arrival by long-distance exchange of high-quality prestige jade axes from a source in the Italian Alps.

Archaeological interpretations of continuity and abandonment can have significant implications for descendant communities. Such interpretations are contingent on the social and spatial scale of analysis. We assess the evidence for continuity among the Coast Salish at four of social-spatial scales using a suite of radiocarbon dates
derived from Tsleil-Wat (Burrard Inlet and Indian Arm) and the Fraser Valley (∼3500–250 cal BP). We define continuity as the ability to pass on place-based knowledge inter-generationally – conservatively a span of
60 years. For each social-spatial scale, we evaluate whether we have the minimum number of radiocarbon dates required to assess continuity. We also utilize demographic modeling of the radiocarbon dates to evaluate whether there are significant gaps in the data that would indicate discontinuities in occupation. Overlapping
radiocarbon dates suggest continuity at various social-spatial scales, but our ability to detect long-term continuity increases with sample size and size of the social-spatial unit. The modeling did not reveal gaps in occupation, but low statistical power limits our ability to make conclusive interpretations. These analyses highlight
both the importance of choosing appropriate scales of analysis and the potential limitations of archaeological data sets for evaluating continuity at culturally meaningful scales in the past.

We investigated the changing role of climate, forest fires and human population size in the broad-scale compositional changes in Holocene vegetation dynamics before and after the onset of farming in Sweden (at 6,000 cal yr BP) and in Finland (at 4,000 cal yr BP). Southern and central Sweden, SW and SE Finland. Holocene regional plant abundances were reconstructed using the REVEALS model on selected fossil pollen records from lakes. The relative importance of climate, fires and human population size on changes in vegetation composition was assessed using variation partitioning. Past climate variable was derived from the LOVECLIM climate model. Fire variable was reconstructed from sedimentary charcoal records. Estimated trend in human population size was based on the temporal distribution of archaeological radiocarbon dates. Climate explains the highest proportion of variation in vegetation composition during the whole study period in Sweden (10,000–4,000 cal yr BP) and in Finland (10,000–1,000 cal yr BP), and during the pre-agricultural period. In general, fires explain a relatively low proportion of variation. Human population size has significant effect on vegetation dynamics after the onset of farming and explains the highest variation in vegetation in S Sweden and SW Finland. Mesolithic hunter-gatherer populations did not significantly affect vegetation composition in Fennoscandia, and climate was the main driver of changes at that time. Agricultural communities, however, had greater effect on vegetation dynamics, and the role of human population size became a more important factor during the late Holocene. Our results demonstrate that climate can be considered the main driver of long-term vegetation dynamics in Fennoscandia. However, in some regions the influence of human population size on Holocene vegetation changes exceeded that of climate and has a longevity dating to the early Neolithic.

We consider the provocative idea of whether urbanism as a condition or process is visible in Northern tsimshian archaeology. We define the condition of urbanism through four traits, each of which we associate with measurable variables. We explore changes in these across the study area in 100-year time bins over 6000 years. We also consider urbanism as a process that includes five kinds of relations. We consider these through six chronological stanzas visible in our metric data. While there is evidence of changes towards urbanism, we argue that urbanism as a condition is not evident in our data. We propose that urbanism involves a suite of causes and trajec-tories with multiple potential outcomes, not all of which achieve the threshold of cities.

We extend an established simulation-based method to test for significant short-duration (1–2 centuries) demographic events known from one documented historical and one oral historical context. Case study 1 extrapolates population data from the Western historical tradition using historically derived demographic data from the catastrophic European Black Death/bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis). We find a corresponding statistically significant drop in absolute population using an extended version of a previously published simulation method. Case study 2 uses this refined simulation method to test for a settlement gap identified in oral historical records of descendant Tsimshian First Nations communities from the Prince Rupert Harbour region of the Pacific Northwest region of British Columbia, Canada. Using a regional database of n = 523 radiocarbon dates, we find a significant drop in relative population using the extended simulation-based method consistent with Tsimshian oral records. We conclude that our technical refinement extends the utility of radiocarbon simulation methods and can provide a rigorous test of demographic predictions derived from a range of historical sources.

Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH), on the north Pacific Coast of British Columbia, contains at least 157 shell middens, of which 66 are known villages, in an area of approximately 180 km2. These sites span the last 9500 yr and in some cases are immense, exceeding 20,000 m2 surface area and several meters in depth. Recent archaeological research in PRH has become increasingly reliant on radiocarbon dates from marine shell for developing chronologies. However, this is problematic as the local marine reservoir effect (MRE) remains poorly understood in the region. To account for the MRE and to better date the Harbour’s sites, we propose a ΔR of 273±38 for the PRH area, based on our work at the site of Kitandach (GbTo-34), a massive shell midden-village centrally located within the Harbour. We followed the multiple paired sample approach for samples from specific contexts and ensured contemporaneity within the groups of marine and terrestrial materials by statistically assessing for outliers using the χ2 test. Taking together, the results for this and previous studies, it appears the MRE was fairly constant over the past 5000 yr.

The florescence of large, regional radiocarbon data sets allows archaeologists to examine fine-scale, local changes in demography and settlement that are not tied to regional culture historical frameworks. We compile 599 radiocarbon dates from 95 archaeological sites in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia and use two complimentary approaches to explore how populations are distributed over time and across the region. First, we apply a summed probability distribution model to the dataset; this model indicates that populations generally increased over the Holocene with a significant rise 800–600 years ago. We then divide our data into 250-year periods and classify each site based on the number of houses, as a large settlement, small settlement, or camp for every period. We observe that the relative numbers of these site types fluctuate through time, and hypothesize that the larger fluctuations indicate changing patterns of social aggregation and dispersal, and settlement abandonment and reoccupation. Through time we see an increase in the number of sites overall, but with considerable variation in the relative number of site types. We see an underlying stability in settlement organization indicative of long-term cultural continuity and place-based identities linked to both specific sites and general locations within the region.

We highlight mathematical properties of radiocarbon ages which regularly cause age distortion in archaeological studies. Examples are the artificial clustering of 14C-ages on the 14C-scale, the lock/in of calibrated 14C-ages to certain values on the calendric time-scale, the curious fact that numeric ‘probability’ values assigned to the multiple calendric scale intervals do not add up to 100% (contra the axioms of classical probability theory), as well as the invalidity of the Central Value Theorem. In this paper we focus on the cause of the (well-known) shape distortion of summed calibrated probability distributions (SPDs) due to the occurrence of (highly visible) vertical spikes and prongs and spikes). Although not widely recognised, due to the same non-commutative properties of 14C-ages, there also exists a strong horizontal distortion that effects both the shape of SPDs, as well as all sequencing results, but this mode of age distortion is typically much less visible.

If archaeology is to take a leading role in the social sciences, new theoretical and methodological advances emerging from the natural sciences cannot be ignored. This requires considerable retooling for archaeology as a discipline at a population scale of analysis. Such an approach is not easy to carry through, especially owing to historically contingent regional traditions; however, the knowledge gained by directly addressing these problems head-on is well worth the effort. This paper shows how population level processes driving cultural evolution can be better understood if mathematical and computational methods, often with a strong element of simulation, are applied to archaeological datasets. We use computational methods to study patterns and process of temporal variation in the frequency of cultural variants. More specifically, we will explore how lineages of lithic technologies are transmitted over time using a well-analysed and chronologically fine-grained assemblage of Central European Neolithic armatures from the French Jura. We look for sharp cultural transitions in the frequency of armature types by trying to detect significant mismatches between predictions dictated by an unbiased transmission model and observed empirical data. A simple armature classification scheme based on morphology is introduced. The results have considerable implications for analysing and understanding cultural transmission pathways not only for Neolithic armatures, but also for the evolution of lithic technology more generally in different spatiotemporal contexts.

The data-set described here comprises cranial pathology data and cranial age assessment for 113 individuals
from four Mesolithic-Neolithic sites in the Danube Gorges, Serbia. Calibrated radiocarbon dates by
archaeological site were included where available. The data were collected after anthropological analysis
of this collection. This dataset is available from UCL Discovery in .csv format. The reuse potential of
these data is great for paleoepidemiology studies, and for associated time-series analyses in this region
and beyond. Furthermore, these data can be used for comparative studies of cranial pathology and aging
profiles in other Mesolithic-Neolithic collections.

Archaeologists have long sought appropriate ways to describe the duration and floruit of archaeological cultures in statistical terms. Thus far, chronological reasoning has been largely reliant on typological sequences. Using summed probability distributions, the authors here compare radiocarbon dates for a series of European Neolithic cultures with their generally accepted ‘standard’ date ranges and with the greater precision afforded by dendrochronology, where that is available. The resulting analysis gives a new and more accurate description of the duration and intensity of European Neolithic cultures.

The calibration of radiocarbon measurements is based on a number of mathematical assumptions that are rarely considered by users of the various available calibration programs. As 14C ages take on mathematical properties best known from quantum physics, a quantum theoretical approach provides a useful basis to evaluate the reliability of processes of calibration and Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon datasets. We undertake such an evaluation here through a consideration of the mathematics of calibration, the normalization process, and through an archaeological case study. We demonstrate that the normalization function deemed necessary for 14C histogram shape-correction is identical to the default prior widely used in Bayesian calibration. We highlight flaws in default Bayesian calibration algorithms which may affect archaeological studies that are overly reliant on high calibration precision, especially when based on relatively small (N<100) sample sizes. The observed differences between algorithms have consequences for radiocarbon models that claim sub-generational (~25–30 calendar years) precision.

This paper presents the results of excavations conducted in Sept. 2013 in Seocka pećina, in
the near vicinity of the Skadar Lake. A Mesolithic level, dated by radiocarbon to the late 9th – early 8th
millennium cal. BC was discovered, in addition to several finds belonging to the Bronze Age. Although
spatially limited, these results are important as they provide a first glimpse of the Mesolithic settlement
pattern and associated activities in this under-investigated part of Montenegro.

This fieldwork report presents the results of the ground survey phase of ieldwork of the Minuiyeh Archaeological Survey during the 2008 and 2009 seasons. These seasons also saw the continuation of investigations into the cemetery and Sacred Falcon Necropolis at the Quesna archaeological area and
into the archaeological remains at Kom el-Ahmar, Minuf. The 2008 season saw the irst visit of the ground survey to the region between el-Khatatbah and Kafr Dawud, west of the Rosetta branch of the Nile, as well as further investigation into sites across the province and the continuation of the drill
core survey. In 2009 the ground survey returned to the desert edge in the vicinity of el-Khatatbah for a focussed survey investigating early encampments and settlements along the desert edge.

During late Greenland Interstadial 1 (the Allerød chronozone), southern Scandinavia witnessed an abrupt cultural transition. This period marks the end of Late Magdalenian/Final Palaeolithic Federmessergruppen in the region, and the beginning of the Bromme culture. The latter is characterised by a restricted territorial range, loss of bow-arrow technology, and a general reduction in material culture complexity. Different hypotheses for the origin of the Bromme culture have been put forward, variously stressing local continuity or discontinuity. Different environmental and cultural factors have been suggested to force the observed changes, but crucially their precise timing remains elusive. Here, we review competing hypotheses for this cultural transition, and evaluate them using an audited regional database of the available 14C dates. We construct a series of Bayesian calibration models using the IntCal09 calibration curve to clarify timings of cultural continuity/discontinuity, probable duration of different techno-complexes, and relationships between environmental changes and material culture transitions. Our models suggest that the Bromme culture emerged late in the Allerød, and that the Laacher See-eruption most probably forced this cultural event horizon.

Analysis of the proportion of immature skeletons recovered from European prehistoric cemeteries has shown that the transition to agriculture after 9000 BP triggered a long-term increase in human fertility. Here we compare the largest analysis of European cemeteries to date with an independent line of evidence, the summed calibrated date probability distribution of radiocarbon dates (SCDPD) from archaeological sites. Our cemetery reanalysis confirms increased growth rates after the introduction of agriculture; the radiocarbon analysis also shows this pattern, and a significant correlation between both lines of evidence confirms the demographic validity of SCDPDs. We analyze the areal extent of Neolithic enclosures and demographic data from ethnographically known farming and foraging societies and we estimate differences in population levels at individual sites. We find little effect on the overall shape and precision of the SCDPD and we observe a small increase in the correlation with the cemetery trends. The SCDPD analysis supports the hypothesis that the transition to agriculture dramatically increased demographic growth, but it was followed within centuries by a general pattern of collapse even after accounting for higher settlement densities during the Neolithic. The study supports the unique contribution of SCDPDs as a valid demographic proxy for the demographic patterns associated with early agriculture.

Britain's landscapes were substantially transformed as a result of prehistoric agricultural clearance and deforestation. This process began in the Neolithic and is recorded in multiple different “archives”, notably those deriving from archaeological site excavations and from off-site pollen records. This paper assesses the extent to which these two independent sources show common trends and timing in terms of demographic and environmental change across Britain during the millennia prior to and after the appearance of the first farming communities. This period is analysed within the wider context of the 9000–3400 cal. BP time frame. We compare land-cover change aggregated from 42 pollen records employing a pseudo-biomisation approach with radiocarbon (14C) date probability density functions from archaeological sites, which have been inferred to indicate shifts in population density. We also compare these results with selected palaeoclimate records in order to test alternative drivers of landscape change. At a broad geographical scale, pollen and archaeological records reveal very similar phases between 9000 and 3400 cal. BP. Following an initial demographic shift and landscape opening during the Late Mesolithic (∼7600 cal. BP) conditions were stable until 6400 cal. BP. Around 6400–6000 cal. BP (Mesolithic–Neolithic transition) a new phase began of forest disturbance and population increase. By 6000–5300 cal. BP early Neolithic population growth is clearly evident in the archaeological record with significant impacts on woodland cover, which is evident in the pollen record, reaching a maximum between 5700 and 5400 cal. BP. Between 5300 and 4400 cal. BP the archaeological record is inferred to indicate reduced mid-late Neolithic landscape impact, and this is matched by evidence of woodland re-establishment in the pollen record. Between 4400 and 3400 cal. BP renewed late Neolithic woodland clearance coincided with further population increase, which continued into the early Bronze Age. A very similar pattern is evident using a smaller-scale dataset from Scotland alone. Thus, rather than being slow and progressive, the initial Neolithic cultural transformation of Britain's landscape was relatively rapid and widespread; however, after several centuries of expansion, this process was halted and even reversed, before recommencing during the later 3rd millennium BC (after ∼4500 cal. BP). The impact of Neolithic forest clearance is clearly detectable as a driver of regional-scale mid-Holocene landscape change, alongside variations in climate. The Neolithic agricultural transition began a long process of anthropogenically-driven land-cover change in the British Isles, which has continued up until the present-day.

The transformation of natural landscapes in Middle Europe began in the Neolithic as a result of the introduction of food-producing economies. This paper examines the relation between land-cover and demographic change in a regionally restricted case study. The study area is the Western Lake Constance area which has very detailed palynological as well as archaeological records. We compare land-cover change derived from nine pollen records using a pseudo-biomisation approach with 14C date probability density functions from archaeological sites which serve as a demographic proxy. We chose the Lake Constance area as a regional example where the pollen signal integrates a larger spatial pattern. The land-cover reconstructions for this region show first notable impacts at the Middle to Young Neolithic transition. The beginning of the Bronze Age is characterised by increases of arable land and pasture/meadow, whereas the deciduous woodland decreases dramatically. Changes in the land-cover classes show a correlation with the 14C density curve: the correlation is best with secondary woodland in the Young Neolithic which reflects the lake shore settlement dynamics. In the Early Bronze Age, the radiocarbon density correlates with open land-cover classes, such as pasture, meadow and arable land, reflecting a change in the land-use strategy. The close overall correspondence between the two archives implies that population dynamics and land-cover change were intrinsically linked. We therefore see human impact as a key driver for vegetation change in the Neolithic. Climate might have an influence on vegetation development, but the changes caused by human land use are clearly detectable from Neolithic times, at least in these densely settled, mid-altitude landscapes.

A wide range of theories and methods inspired from evolutionary biology have recently been used to investigate temporal changes in the frequency of archaeological material. Here we follow this research agenda and present a novel approach based on Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC), which enables the evaluation of multiple competing evolutionary models formulated as computer simulations. This approach offers the opportunity to: 1) flexibly integrate archaeological biases derived from sampling and time averaging; 2) estimate model parameters in a probabilistic fashion, taking into account both prior knowledge and empirical data; and 3) shift from an hypothesis-testing to a model selection approach. We applied ABC to a chronologically fine-grained Western European Neolithic armature assemblage, comparing three possible candidate models of evolutionary change: 1) unbiased transmission; 2) conformist bias; and 3) anti-conformist bias. Results showed that unbiased and anti-conformist transmission models provide equally good explanatory models for the observed data, suggesting high levels of equifinality. We also examined whether the appearance of the Bell Beaker culture was correlated with marked changes in the frequency of different armature types. Comparisons between the empirical data and expectations generated from the simulation model did not show any evidence in support of this hypothesis and instead indicated lower than expected dissimilarity between assemblages dated before and after the emergence of the Bell Beaker culture.

In a previous study we presented a new method that used summed probability distributions (SPD) of radiocarbon dates as a proxy for population levels, and Monte-Carlo simulation to test the significance of the observed fluctuations in the context of uncertainty in the calibration curve and archaeological sampling. The method allowed us to identify periods of significant short-term population change, caveated with the fact that around 5% of these periods were false positives. In this study we present an improvement to the method by applying a criterion to remove these false positives from both the simulated and observed distributions, resulting in a substantial improvement to both its sensitivity and specificity. We also demonstrate that the method is extremely robust in the face of small sample sizes. Finally we apply this improved method to radiocarbon datasets from 12 European regions, covering the period 8000 to 4000 BP. As in our previous study, the results reveal a boom-bust pattern for most regions, with population levels rising rapidly after the local arrival of farming, followed by a crash to levels much lower than the peak. The prevalence of this phenomenon, combined with the dissimilarity and lack of synchronicity in the general shapes of the regional SPDs, supports the hypothesis of endogenous causes.

Stephen Shennan, Sean S. Downey, Adrian Timpson, Kevan Edinborough, Sue Colledge, Tim Kerig, Katie Manning & Mark G. Thomas

Following its initial arrival in SE Europe 8,500 years ago agriculture spread throughout the continent, changing food production and consumption patterns and increasing population densities. Here we show that, in contrast to the steady population growth usually assumed, the introduction of agriculture into Europe was followed by a boom-and-bust pattern in the density of regional populations. We demonstrate that summed calibrated radiocarbon date distributions and simulation can be used to test the significance of these demographic booms and busts in the context of uncertainty in the radiocarbon date calibration curve and archaeological sampling. We report these results for Central and Northwest Europe between 8,000 and 4,000 cal. BP and investigate the relationship between these patterns and climate. However, we find no evidence to support a relationship. Our results thus suggest that the demographic patterns may have arisen from endogenous causes, although this remains speculative.

ABSTRACT First settlement of Polynesia, and population expansion throughout the ancestral Polynesian homeland are foundation events for global history. A precise chronology is paramount to informed archaeological interpretation of these events and their consequences. Recently applied chronometric hygiene protocols excluding radiocarbon dates on wood charcoal without species identification all but eliminates this chronology as it has been built for the Kingdom of Tonga, the initial islands to be settled in Polynesia. In this paper we re-examine and redevelop this chronology through application of Bayesian models to the questioned suite of radiocarbon dates, but also incorporating short-lived wood charcoal dates from archived samples and high precision U/Th dates on coral artifacts. These models provide generation level precision allowing us to track population migration from first Lapita occupation on the island of Tongatapu through Tonga’s central and northern island groups. They further illustrate an exceptionally short duration for the initial colonizing Lapita phase and a somewhat abrupt transition to ancestral Polynesian society as it is currently defined.

A series of radiocarbon dates from two Epipalaeolithic sites – Kharaneh IV and Ayn Qasiyya – in the Azraq Basin of eastern Jordan provide a new perspective on the chronology and settlement patterns of this part of southwest Asia during the Late Pleistocene. We discuss the implications to our understanding of the chronology of Late Pleistocene lithic industries, particularly in regard to current hypotheses for the abandonment of eastern Jordan's ‘mega-sites’, Kharaneh IV and Jilat 6. Modelling a series of accelerator mass spectrometry dates from Kharaneh IV indicates a much shorter span of occupation for the site than previously assumed by the size and density of its deposits. Given the high density of material accumulated over a relatively short time span, we show that Kharaneh IV was an aggregation site occupied intensively by a significant number of people, providing new perspectives on the east Jordanian phenomenon of Epipalaeolithic ‘mega-sites’.

"Following its initial arrival in SE Europe 8,500 years ago agriculture spread throughout the continent, changing food production and consumption patterns and increasing population densities. Here we show that, in contrast to the steady population growth usually assumed, the introduction of agriculture into Europe was followed by a boom-and-bust pattern in the density of regional populations. We demonstrate that summed calibrated radiocarbon date
distributions and simulation can be used to test the significance of these demographic booms and busts in the context of uncertainty in the radiocarbon date calibration curve and archaeological sampling. We report these results for Central and Northwest Europe between 8,000 and 4,000 cal. BP and investigate the relationship between these patterns and climate. However, we find no evidence to support a relationship. Our results thus suggest that the demographic patterns may have arisen from endogenous causes, although this remains speculative.
"

Abstract
In a previous study we presented a new method that used summed probability distributions (SPD) of radiocarbon dates as a proxy for population levels, and Monte-Carlo simulation to test the significance of the observed fluctuations in the context of uncertainty in the calibration curve and archaeological sampling. The method allowed us to identify periods of significant short-term population change, caveated with the fact that around 5% of these periods were false positives. In this study we present an improvement to the method by applying a criterion to remove these false positives from both the simulated and observed distributions, resulting in a substantial improvement to both its sensitivity and specificity. We also demonstrate that the method is extremely robust in the face of small sample sizes. Finally we apply this improved method to radiocarbon datasets from 12 European regions, covering the period 8000 to 4000 BP. As in our previous study, the results reveal a boom-bust pattern for most regions, with population levels rising rapidly after the local arrival of farming, followed by a crash to levels much lower than the peak. The prevalence of this phenomenon, combined with the dissimilarity and lack of synchronicity in the general shapes of the
regional SPDs, supports the hypothesis of endogenous causes.

The field of cultural evolution has seen a great deal of theoretical development and increasing empirical work in the last decade. Up to now there has been no substantive attempt to bring the different subfields of cultural evolutionary theory and method together in an integrated fashion. This project aims to do this for the first time in a large-scale case-study, providing the basis for a new account of the role of farming in transforming early European societies, c.6000-2000 cal BC. It will address specific questions concerning the links between demographic, economic, social and cultural patterns and processes. Our results will contribute to making archaeology part of the broader inter-disciplinary endeavour of evolutionary social science. The project's basis is the creation of a GIS database of a standardised set of data, conceptualised and analysed in a framework which transcends the local investigatory traditions in different parts of Europe, following the model of the databases of Early Neolithic plant and faunal evidence from SW Asia and Europe recently created by Prof. Shennan and colleagues. This project depends on the the richness of data already collected by researchers all over Europe. Contributing to the database gives access to its content. Prof. Stephen Shennan (Institute of Archaeology London) is the Principal Investigator, well known for his research on the European Neolithic and Bronze Age and for his work on developing approaches to explaining the past based on evolutionary theory. Dr Kevan Edinborough (previously Simon Fraser University Vancouver, Canada) collects and analyses radiocarbon data from Mesolithic and Neolithic archaeological sites for the western half of temperate Europe. He constructs calibration models using specific sets of dates to address particular questions, often concerning the earliest and latest dates for particular phenomena. Dr Edinborough uses summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates as proxies for regionally scaled population variation, and investigates the factors that may confound this method, such as site formation processes. Dr Tim Kerig (previously University of Cologne, Germany) collects and analyses data on exchange patterns and other cultural attributes. He creates databases of geo-referenced cultural data for the Neolithic of Central and Western Europe, for example finds of exchanged material of known source, burials, ceramic attributes, characteristics of monuments. Dr Kerig carries out statistical analyses of specific sets of cultural data to address particular questions (e.g. he is interested in exchange networks and ornament / pottery design, respectively). He also relates spatial and temporal trends in cultural data to patterning in other dimensions that the project is addressing, for example ecology and demography. Dr Sean Downey (previously Stanford University, US) will create and manage the GIS database as well as carrying out more complex analytical procedures, including spatial and phylogenetic analyses and evolutionary modelling. He will create and maintain the overall GIS database for linking together the geo-referenced data sets collected by the other project researchers and will link them to other spatial data coverages, for example climate and elevation data. Dr Sue Colledge is the project archaeobotanist. She has previously worked on a project creating and analysing a database of plant macroremains from early Neolithic sites from SW Asia to NW Europe, and on a similar project collecting faunal data, the Origin and Spread of Stock Keeping (OSSK). She will be compiling archaeobotanical and pollen data for the project database and carrying out data analyses. Dr Katie Manning is the project faunal analyst. For her PhD she worked on subsistence patterns in Mali. She has also previously worked on the early Neolithic OSSK faunal project. She will be compiling the faunal database for the project and carrying out data analyses. Case-study: Radiocarbon evidence indicates that migrants introduced farming to Britain Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe: The 4 year ERC-Project EUROEVOL at ucl, London Archaeologists disagree about how farming began in Britain. Some argue it was a result of indigenous groups adopting domesticates and cultigens via trade and exchange. Others contend it was the consequenceof a migration of farmers from mainland Europe. To shed light on this debate, we used radiocarbon dates to estimate changes in population density between 8000 and 4000 cal BP. We found evidence for a marked and rapid increase in population density coincident with the appearance of cultigens around 6000 cal BP. We also found evidence that this increase occurred first in southern England and shortly afterwards in central Scotland. These findings are best explained by groups of farmers from the Continent independently colonizing England and Scotland, and therefore strongly support the migrant farmers hypothesis. Fig. 2. Spatial density of the full set of dates between 6100 and 5300 cal BP in 100-year time slices. Date densities were binned in intervals of 100 years and weighted two dimensional kernel density estimation performed for each timeslice

J. Holzkämper / I. Kretschmer / A. Maier / M. Baales / A. von Berg / J. A. A. Bos / M. Bradtmöller / K. Edinborough / S. Flohr / L. Giemsch / S. B. Grimm / J. Hilpert / A. J. Kalis / T. Kerig / D. Leesch / J. Meurers-Balke / L. Mevel / J. Orschiedt / M. Otte / A. Pastoors / P. Pettitt / E. Rensink / J. Richter / F. Riede / Schmidt / Isabell / R. W. Schmitz / S. Shennan / M. Street / Y. Tafelmaier / M.-J. Weber / K. P. Wendt / G.-C. Weniger / A. Zimmermann, The Upper-Late Palaeolithic Transition in Western Central Europe. Typology, Technology, Environment and Demography. Report on the workshop held in Rösrath, 21st - 24th June 2012. Archäologische Informationen 36, 2014, in press.
Abstract: Transitions, such as the one from the Upper to Late Palaeolithic in Europe, are episodes of cultural and demographic change, which raise questions about possible causal connections between environmental changes and human behaviour. The workshop The Upper-Late Palaeolithic Transition in Western Central Europe. Typology, Technology, Environment and Demography, organised by the Collaborative Research Centre 806, focused on discussing and disentangling these aspects. Experts from seven European countries reported the current state of knowledge and recent research on typology, technology, ecology, and population dynamics during the Upper to Late Palaeolithic transition (14,700 – 13,500 calBP) in north-western Europe. The presentations concerning the methods of palaeodemography included examples from the European Palaeolithic and Neolithic.

Zu den beeindruckendsten neolithischen Kulturerscheinungen gehören zweifellos Bergwerke. Wir werden ein Modell der Abbautätigkeit der europäischen Silexbergwerke (aus England und Schottland, Frankreich, den Beneluxstaaten, Deutschland, der Tschechischen Republik, der Schweiz, Schweden und Dänemark, Polen, Weissrussland und Litauen) entwerfen, wobei die summierten Wahrscheinlichkeiten kalibrierter Radiokarbondaten aus Bergwerksschächten als Ausgangspunkt dienen. Eine neue und konservative Methode zur Darstellung von 14C Daten erlaubt die Zusammenfassung dieser Daten in einer Kurve, deren Mutungsintervall sowohl Maschinen/Laborfehlern als auch Schwankungen in der Kalibrationskurve Rechnung trägt. In die Berechnungen gingen insgesamt 518 Radiocarbondaten von 57 Fundorten ein. Der Rechenweg wird kurz vorgestellt, wobei u.a. Monte Carlo Sampling und Loess Modelling zur Angabe eines Mittelwertes und eines 95% Mutungsintervalles führen. Wir argumentieren, dass diese Daten als Index für die Intensität der Abbautätigkeit über die Zeit verwendet werden können und das dabei wesentliche Trends der europäischen Wirtschaftsentwicklung im Zeitbereich 6000 calBC bis 2000 calBC erkennbar werden. Diese Trends entsprechen zeitlich den kulturhistorischen Perioden des zentraleuropäischen Neolithikums (Alt-, Mittel-, Jung-, Spät- und Endneolithikum); auch können diese Trends zu demographischen Proxies in Relation gesetzt werden. Wir interpretieren die Schwankungen der Aktivitäten im Bergbau als Schwankungen in der Intensität neolithischer Austauschbeziehungen. Die Arbeiten wurden ermöglicht durch den ERC Advanced Research Grant #28973498237.

In a previous study we presented a new method that used summed probability distributions (SPD) of radiocarbon dates as a proxy for population levels, and Monte-Carlo simulation to test the significance of the observed fluctuations in the context of uncertainty in the calibration curve and archaeological sampling. The method allowed us to identify periods of significant short-term population change, caveated with the fact that around 5% of these periods were false positives. In this study we present an improvement to the method by applying a criterion to remove these false positives from both the simulated and observed distributions, resulting in a substantial improvement to both its sensitivity and specificity. We also demonstrate that the method is extremely robust in the face of small sample sizes. Finally we apply this improved method to radiocarbon datasets from 12 European regions, covering the period 8000–4000 BP. As in our previous study, the results reveal a boom-bust pattern for most regions, with population levels rising rapidly after the local arrival of farming, followed by a crash to levels much lower than the peak. The prevalence of this phenomenon, combined with the dissimilarity and lack of synchronicity in the general shapes of the regional SPDs, supports the hypothesis of endogenous causes.