Centre for Research in Evolutionary, Social and Inter-Disciplinary Anthropology, Department of Life Sciences, University of Roehampton, London, UK.
Evolutionary Ecology Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Nat Hum Behav. 2020 Oct;4(10):1004-1010. doi: 10.1038/s41562-020-0897-7. Epub 2020 Jul 6.
The Neolithic transition in Europe was driven by the rapid dispersal of Near Eastern farmers who, over a period of 3,500 years, brought food production to the furthest corners of the continent. However, this wave of expansion was far from homogeneous, and climatic factors may have driven a marked slowdown observed at higher latitudes. Here, we test this hypothesis by assembling a large database of archaeological dates of first arrival of farming to quantify the expansion dynamics. We identify four axes of expansion and observe a slowdown along three axes when crossing the same climatic threshold. This threshold reflects the quality of the growing season, suggesting that Near Eastern crops might have struggled under more challenging climatic conditions. This same threshold also predicts the mixing of farmers and hunter-gatherers as estimated from ancient DNA, suggesting that unreliable yields in these regions might have favoured the contact between the two groups.
欧洲的新石器时代转型是由近东农民的快速扩散所驱动的，他们在 3500 年的时间里将粮食生产带到了欧洲大陆的最偏远地区。然而，这一波扩张远非同质的，气候因素可能导致在较高纬度地区观察到明显的放缓。在这里，我们通过组装一个大型考古日期数据库来检验这一假设，该数据库用于量化扩张动态。我们确定了四个扩张轴，并在跨越相同气候阈值时观察到三个轴的放缓。这个阈值反映了生长季节的质量，表明近东作物在更具挑战性的气候条件下可能难以生长。同样的阈值也预测了根据古代 DNA 估计的农民和狩猎采集者的混合，这表明这些地区不可靠的产量可能有利于两组之间的接触。
