Skandfer et al./Archaeological Perspectives on Hunter-Gatherer Landscapes, 6. Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions

Establishing an environmental history framework is foundational for archaeological studies of landscape relations. The rapid accumulation of high-resolution climate change data from northern Fennoscandia in recent years has resulted in a much more complex picture than was previously available, so much so that it is beyond the capacity of this chapter to provide more than a summary. We begin with a short discussion of the North Atlantic climate system because its dynamics strongly condition the proxy data sources we consider here. After a brief consideration of deglaciation processes during the Late Pleistocene to Holocene transition, we provide an overview of Holocene vegetation history in northern Fennoscandia, as inferred from pollen and dendrochronological proxies. We then turn to the main trends in climate change and their implications for human responses.