Search

The eastern North American Arctic has a complex 5000-year prehistory, during which many human population movements occurred over great distances. Archaeologists have interpreted these movements as resulting from many factors, however the effects of climate change are often hypothesized as primary drivers that can "push" human groups to leave some regions, or "pull" them to move to others. Here, we examine climate change at the regional scale over the Common Era using Arctic paleoclimate data derived from a wide suite of biological proxies and geochemical tracers. We consider available statistical composites of high resolution (sub-decadal) paleo-temperature reconstructions for the Arctic region, as well as local-scale reconstructions at century or sub-century scale resolution in three focal regions of archaeological significance relevant to population movements: Victoria Island, Foxe Basin/Baffin Island, and the High Arctic (Ellesmere Island/Northwestern Greenland). We emphasize the two most widespread, though variable, climate change events characteristic of this period: the Medieval Climatic Anomaly and Little Ice Age in the second millennium AD; we also evaluate the evidence for the Roman Warm Period and Dark Ages Cold Period in the first millennium AD, as context for later events. We integrate information on the timing and magnitude of these events across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and assess the degree to which they coincide with current understanding of major population movements, with particular emphasis on three migration episodes. First, the expansion of Late Dorset Paleo-Inuit to the Central and High Arctic beginning in the late first millennium AD is plausibly linked to warming temperatures of the MCA. Second, the migration of Thule Inuit from Alaska to the Eastern Arctic beginning ca AD 1250 is not linked to warmer temperatures as previously hypothesized, and is therefore more likely related to social factors in Alaska. Third, the abandonment of northern regions and new settlement of southern regions by Inuit in the mid-second millennium AD is likely linked to a combination of cooling climate and increasing availability of European trade goods. Together, these three case studies indicate that linkages between climate change and migration are complex, variable, and mediated through social and economic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human paleodemographic changes were related to environmental fluctuations for the North American Arctic and boreal region, including Greenland. Using the frequency of archaeological radiocarbon dates as a proxy for population size, past changes in population were estimated and quantitatively examined in relation to reconstructions of temperature and sea ice conditions. This analysis was conducted across three spatial scales in order to better identify potential climate impacts on population size: the entire area, four major cultural-environmental regions and sixteen sub-regions. The timing of initial settlement differed by region, and population size fluctuated through time, but there was nevertheless an overall, accelerating increase in most areas. There was a high correspondence between millennial and centennial-scale climate variability and paleodemographic changes across the region, with population size generally increasing during warmer periods and decreasing during cooling episodes. Late Holocene cooling (neoglaciation) triggered a nearly-synchronous population decline across the entire region at 3.9 ka, a time when significant societal disruptions have been identified around the world, and are here shown in the Arctic. Decreasing temperatures and increased sea ice coverage also influenced large-scale migration patterns of Paleo-Inuit peoples as well as their cultural evolution. The growth of Paleo-Inuit populations after 3 ka during continued climate cooling is consistent with archaeological evidence suggesting Paleo-Inuit technological change enabled adaptations to increased sea ice. • Multi-scale analysis of human-environment interactions discerns local and regional population dynamics. • Climate changes caused increases and decreases in population in the Arctic and Subarctic. • Neoglaciation triggered continental-scale population decline across the north. • Population density underwent long-term growth despite climate-induced regional decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]