From visitation to intensification: a new demographic history of Palaeolithic Europe (Dr Jennifer French, University of Liverpool)
1:00pm - 2:00pm /
Thursday 26th November 2020
Type: Seminar /
Category: Department
- Lucy Timbrell
- Admission: Free. Registration is required to attend the webinar.
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The Palaeolithic was a time of substantial demographic upheaval. Knowledge of Palaeolithic demographic variation is vital to understanding both humanity’s long-term population history and the substantial social and cultural developments that occurred during this period, including the origins of art and symbolism and the colonisation of an increasing array of new environments.
Weaving together archaeological, palaeoanthropological, and genetic data, and interpreting these with reference to ethnographic data on recent hunter-gatherers, in this talk Jennifer presents an overview of a new model for the demographic prehistory of European Palaeolithic populations (1.8 million to 15,000 years ago). This demographic prehistory of Palaeolithic Europe comprises four stages: visitation, residency, expansion, and intensification. It is a prehistory that is both biological and social; one in which within the physiological constraints on fertility and mortality, Jennifer argues that social relationships provide the key for enduring demographic success. Most importantly, it is a prehistory concerned with the big picture of human evolution, but which is firmly grounded in the day-to-day realities of Palaeolithic people—their families, their children, the way they lived and died.
Weaving together archaeological, palaeoanthropological, and genetic data, and interpreting these with reference to ethnographic data on recent hunter-gatherers, in this talk Jennifer presents an overview of a new model for the demographic prehistory of European Palaeolithic populations (1.8 million to 15,000 years ago). This demographic prehistory of Palaeolithic Europe comprises four stages: visitation, residency, expansion, and intensification. It is a prehistory that is both biological and social; one in which within the physiological constraints on fertility and mortality, Jennifer argues that social relationships provide the key for enduring demographic success. Most importantly, it is a prehistory concerned with the big picture of human evolution, but which is firmly grounded in the day-to-day realities of Palaeolithic people—their families, their children, the way they lived and died.