Paleodemography of the North American Arctic, Subarctic, and Greenland in Relation to Holocene Climate and Environmental Change

Abstract

Human demographic changes in association to environmental fluctuations were studied for the North American Arctic and boreal region. Using the frequency of archaeological radiocarbon dates from the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database as a proxy for population size, past changes in population density were estimated and quantitatively examined in relation to reconstructions of temperature and sea ice conditions. This was conducted across three spatial scales: the entire area, the four major cultural-environmental regions and sixteen subregions in order to identify both broad-scale and local phenomena. There was a high correspondence between millennial and centennial-scale climate variability and paleodemographic changes across the region, with increasing population density during warmer periods and lower density during cooling episodes. An abrupt Late Holocene cooling (neoglaciation) beginning at 3.9 ka triggered a nearly-synchronous population decline across the region. Cooling temperatures and increased sea ice coverage also influenced large-scale migration patterns of Paleo-Inuit peoples as well as their cultural evolution.