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Freeman J, Robinson E, Bird D, Hard RJ, Mauldin RP, Anderies JM. The long-term expansion and recession of human populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2312207121. [PMID: 38466852 PMCID: PMC10962983 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2312207121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2023] [Accepted: 01/31/2024] [Indexed: 03/13/2024] Open
Abstract
Over the last 12,000 y, human populations have expanded and transformed critical earth systems. Yet, a key unresolved question in the environmental and social sciences remains: Why did human populations grow and, sometimes, decline in the first place? Our research builds on 20 y of archaeological research studying the deep time dynamics of human populations to propose an explanation for the long-term growth and stability of human populations. Innovations in the productive capacity of populations fuels exponential-like growth over thousands of years; however, innovations saturate over time and, often, may leave populations vulnerable to large recessions in their well-being and population density. Empirically, we find a trade-off between changes in land use that increase the production and consumption of carbohydrates, driving repeated waves of population growth over thousands of years, and the susceptibility of populations to large recessions due to a lag in the impact of humans on resources. These results shed light on the long-term drivers of human population growth and decline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob Freeman
- Anthropology Program, Utah State University, Logan, UT84321
- The Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan, UT84321
| | - Erick Robinson
- Native Environment Solutions LLC., Boise, ID83701
- Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV89512
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ85281
| | - Darcy Bird
- Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA99164
- University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, FL32611
| | - Robert J. Hard
- Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX78249
| | - Raymond P. Mauldin
- Department of Anthropology, The Center for Archaeological Research, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX78249
| | - John M. Anderies
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ85281
- School of Sustainabilty, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ85281
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Population trends and the transition to agriculture: Global processes as seen from North America. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2209478119. [PMID: 36649404 PMCID: PMC9942849 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2209478119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Agriculture-specifically an intensification of the production of readily stored food and its distribution-has supported an increase in the global human population throughout the Holocene. Today, with greatly accelerated of growth during recent centuries, we have reached about 8 billion people. Human skeletal and archaeobotanical remains clarify what occurred over several millennia of profound societal and population change in small-scale societies once distributed across the North American midcontinent. Stepwise, not gradual, changes in the move toward an agriculturally based life, as indicated by plant remains, left a demographic signal reflecting age-independent ([Formula: see text]) mortality as estimated from skeletons. Designated the age-independent component of the Siler model, it is tracked through the juvenility index (JI), which is increasingly being used in studies of archaeological skeletons. Usually interpreted as a fertility indicator, the JI is more responsive to age-independent mortality in societies that dominated most of human existence. In the midcontinent, the JI increased as people transitioned to a more intensive form of food production that prominently featured maize. Several centuries later, the JI declined, along with a reversion to a somewhat more diverse diet and a reduction in overall population size. Changes in age-independent mortality coincided with previously recognized increases in intergroup conflict, group movement, and pathogen exposure. Similar rises and falls in JI values have been reported for other parts of the world during the emergence of agricultural systems.
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Fojas CL. Abandonment of the Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee during the Mississippian period: Temporal and sex differences in survivorship. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2022; 177:425-438. [PMID: 36787732 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/27/2021] [Revised: 09/25/2021] [Accepted: 11/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES The current research explores survivorship differences in the Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee during the Mississippian period (ca. 1000-1500 AD). Using updated paleodemographic methods, this study investigates whether individuals from the Late Mississippian period had lower survivorship compared to individuals from the Early Mississippian period, foreshadowing groups on the brink of abandonment. Additionally, this study examines whether there were sex disparities in survivorship. MATERIALS AND METHODS Adult age-at-death estimates from human skeletal remains (n = 545) were calculated using Transition Analysis, a Bayesian maximum likelihood method. Survivorship was reconstructed using Gompertz and Gompertz-Makeham hazards models, with Akaike Information Criterion compared to determine the best fitting model. RESULTS For individuals surviving into adulthood, mean age-at-death decreased by 7 years from the Early Mississippian to Late Mississippian period. Marked differences between the sexes indicate lower survivorship of females compared to males. Male survivorship decreased sharply from the Early Mississippian to Late Mississippian period, from a mean age-at-death of 57.99 years to 44.45 years. Female survivorship remained constant throughout the Mississippian period (41 years). DISCUSSION Temporal differences in male survivorship may be the result of interactions between climate change, decreased maize harvests, and sociopolitical strife. Sustained maternal mortality may have destabilized small-scale communities that characterized the Mississippian MCR, thereby precipitating population decline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina L Fojas
- Department of Physical Therapy, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA
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Pompeani DP, Bird BW, Wilson JJ, Gilhooly WP, Hillman AL, Finkenbinder MS, Abbott MB. Severe Little Ice Age drought in the midcontinental United States during the Mississippian abandonment of Cahokia. Sci Rep 2021; 11:13829. [PMID: 34226591 PMCID: PMC8257696 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-92900-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2020] [Accepted: 06/14/2021] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Drought has long been suspected as playing an important role in the abandonment of pre-Columbian Native American settlements across the midcontinental United States between 1350 and 1450 CE. However, high-resolution paleoclimatic reconstructions reflecting local effective moisture (the ratio of precipitation to evaporation) that are located in proximity to Mississippi period (1050-1450 CE) population centers are lacking. Here, we present a 1600-year-long decadally resolved oxygen isotope (δ18O) record from Horseshoe Lake (Collinsville, IL), an evaporatively influenced oxbow lake that is centrally located within the largest and mostly densely populated series of Mississippian settlements known as Greater Cahokia. A shift to higher δ18O in the Horseshoe Lake sediment record from 1200 to 1400 CE indicates that strongly evaporative conditions (i.e., low effective moisture) were persistent during the leadup to Cahokia's abandonment. These results support the hypothesis that climate, and drought specifically, strongly impacted agriculturally based pre-Columbian Native American cultures in the midcontinental US and highlights the susceptibility of this region, presently a global food production center, to hydroclimate extremes.
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Affiliation(s)
- David P Pompeani
- Department of Geology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA.
| | - Broxton W Bird
- Department of Earth Science, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA
| | - Jeremy J Wilson
- Department of Anthropology, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA
| | - William P Gilhooly
- Department of Earth Science, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA
| | - Aubrey L Hillman
- Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, 12222, USA
| | - Matthew S Finkenbinder
- Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Science, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 18766, USA
| | - Mark B Abbott
- Department of Geology and Environmental Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA
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Stager JC, Wiltse B, Cumming BF, Messner TC, Robtoy J, Cushing S. Hydroclimatic and cultural instability in northeastern North America during the last millennium. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0248060. [PMID: 33770105 PMCID: PMC7997019 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248060] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2020] [Accepted: 02/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Long-term, large-scale perspectives are necessary for understanding climate variability and its effects on ecosystems and cultures. Tree ring records of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) and Little Ice Age (LIA) have documented major hydroclimatic variability during the last millennium in the American West, but fewer continuous, high-resolution hydroclimate records of the MCA-LIA period are available for eastern North America, particularly during the transition from the MCA to the LIA (ca. A.D. 1250-1400). Diatoms (micro-algae with silica cell walls) in sediment cores from three Adirondack (NY, USA) lakes and a hiatus in a wetland peat deposit in the Adirondack uplands provide novel insights into the late Holocene hydroclimate history of the Northeast. These records demonstrate that two of the region's most extreme decadal-scale droughts of the last millennium occurred ca. A.D. 1260-1330 and ca. A.D. 1360-1390 during a dry-wet-dry (DWD) oscillation in the Adirondacks that contributed to forest fires and desiccation of wetlands in New York and Maine. The bimodal drying was probably related to more extreme droughts farther west and coincided with major events in Iroquoian and Abenaki cultural history. Although the causes of the DWD oscillation in the Adirondacks remain uncertain, changing sea-surface temperatures and solar variability are likely to have played a role.
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Affiliation(s)
- J. Curt Stager
- Natural Sciences, Paul Smith’s College, Paul Smiths, NY, United States of America
| | - Brendan Wiltse
- Natural Sciences, Paul Smith’s College, Paul Smiths, NY, United States of America
| | | | - Timothy C. Messner
- Department of Anthropology, SUNY Potsdam, Potsdam, NY, United States of America
| | - Joshua Robtoy
- Natural Sciences, Paul Smith’s College, Paul Smiths, NY, United States of America
| | - Sidney Cushing
- Natural Sciences, Paul Smith’s College, Paul Smiths, NY, United States of America
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Pauketat TR. When the Rains Stopped: Evapotranspiration and Ontology at Ancient Cahokia. JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2020. [DOI: 10.1086/711102] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
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Fecal stanols show simultaneous flooding and seasonal precipitation change correlate with Cahokia's population decline. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2019; 116:5461-5466. [PMID: 30804191 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1809400116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
A number of competing hypotheses, including hydroclimatic variations, environmental degradation and disturbance, and sociopolitical disintegration, have emerged to explain the dissolution of Cahokia, the largest prehistoric population center in the United States. Because it is likely that Cahokia's decline was precipitated by multiple factors, some environmental and some societal, a robust understanding of this phenomenon will require multiple lines of evidence along with a refined chronology. Here, we use fecal stanol data from Horseshoe Lake, Illinois, as a population proxy for Cahokia and the broader Horseshoe Lake watershed. We directly compare the fecal stanol data with oxygen stable-isotope and paleoenvironmental data from the same sediment cores to evaluate the role of flooding, drought, and environmental degradation in Cahokia's demographic decline and sociopolitical reorganization. We find that Mississippi River flooding and warm season droughts detrimental to agriculture occurred circa (ca.) 1150 CE and possibly generated significant stress for Cahokia's inhabitants. Our findings implicate climate change during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly to Little Ice Age transition as an important component of population and sociopolitical transformations at Cahokia, and demonstrate how climate transitions can simultaneously influence multiple environmental processes to produce significant challenges to society.
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Stable isotope variations of daily precipitation from 2014-2018 in the central United States. Sci Data 2019; 6:190018. [PMID: 30778258 PMCID: PMC6380221 DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2019.18] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2018] [Accepted: 12/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen (δ2H, δ18O and δ17O) serve as powerful tracers in hydrological investigations. To our knowledge, daily precipitation isotope record especially 17O-excess is rare in the mid-latitudes. To fill such knowledge gap, daily precipitation samples (n=446) were collected from June 2014 to May 2018 in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. A Triple Water Vapor Isotope Analyzer (T-WVIA) based on Off-Axis Integrated Cavity Output Spectroscopy (OA-ICOS) technique was used to concurrently measure precipitation isotopic variations (δ2H, δ18O and δ17O). Meanwhile, 17O-excess and d-excess as second-order isotopic variables were calculated to provide additional information on precipitation formation and transport mechanisms. This study presents a four-year daily precipitation isotope dataset for mid-latitudes, and makes it available to researchers around the world who may use it as a reference for site comparisons and for assessing global hydrological models.
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Tian C, Wang L, Kaseke KF, Bird BW. Stable isotope compositions (δ 2H, δ 18O and δ 17O) of rainfall and snowfall in the central United States. Sci Rep 2018; 8:6712. [PMID: 29712983 PMCID: PMC5928101 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-25102-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2017] [Accepted: 04/16/2018] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen (δ2H, δ18O and δ17O) can be used as natural tracers to improve our understanding of hydrological and meteorological processes. Studies of precipitation isotopes, especially 17O-excess observations, are extremely limited in the mid-latitudes. To fill this knowledge gap, we measured δ2H, δ18O and δ17O of event-based precipitation samples collected from Indianapolis, Indiana, USA over two years and investigated the influence of meteorological factors on precipitation isotope variations. The results showed that the daily temperature played a major role in controlling the isotope variations. Precipitation experienced kinetic fractionation associated with evaporation at the moisture source in the spring and summer and for rainfall, while snowfall, as well as precipitation in the fall and winter, were mainly affected by equilibrium fractionation. The 17O-excess of both rainfall and snowfall were not affected by local meteorological factors over the whole study period. At the seasonal scale, it was the case only for the spring. Therefore, 17O-excess of rainfall, snowfall and the spring precipitation could be considered as tracers of evaporative conditions at the moisture source. This study provides a unique precipitation isotope dataset for mid-latitudes and provides a more mechanistic understanding of precipitation formation mechanisms in this region.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chao Tian
- Department of Earth Sciences, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA
| | - Lixin Wang
- Department of Earth Sciences, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA.
| | - Kudzai Farai Kaseke
- Department of Earth Sciences, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA
| | - Broxton W Bird
- Department of Earth Sciences, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA
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