Population Dynamics and Socio-ecological Trajectories Explain the Emergence of Farming in Late Neolithic Southeast Norway

Abstract

This paper examines the emergence of farming in Late Neolithic Southeast Norway. A summed probability distribution of radiocarbon dates is used to infer population dynamics and together with a chronological model using dated samples from post-built houses, cultivation layers and cereal grains, it is argued that the introduction of farming was swift and caused by incoming farmers. It is further explored how a low population during the Middle Neolithic period, cause by shifting environmental conditions, was central to the rapid population shift and economic change seen in the Late Neolithic, from ca. 2200 cal BC.