Palaeolithic Europe
A Demographic and Social Prehistory

A demographic history of Europe's early human populations from 1.8 million to 15,000 years ago.

Jennifer C. French (Author)

9781108710060, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 September 2023

350 pages
27 x 18 x 2.3 cm, 0.584 kg

In this book, Jennifer French presents a new synthesis of the archaeological, palaeoanthropological, and palaeogenetic records of the European Palaeolithic, adopting a unique demographic perspective on these first two-million years of European prehistory. Unlike prevailing narratives of demographic stasis, she emphasises the dynamism of Palaeolithic populations of both our evolutionary ancestors and members of our own species across four demographic stages, within a context of substantial Pleistocene climatic changes. Integrating evolutionary theory with a socially oriented approach to the Palaeolithic, French bridges biological and cultural factors, with a focus on women and children as the drivers of population change. She shows how, within the physiological constraints on fertility and mortality, social relationships provide the key to enduring demographic success. Through its demographic focus, French combines a 'big picture' perspective on human evolution with careful analysis of the day-to-day realities of European Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer communities—their families, their children, and their lives.

1. Towards a Social Palaeodemography of Early Prehistory
2. Stones, Bones, and Genes: A Palaeodemographic Database
3. Hunter-Gatherer Demography
4. Visitation: The First European Populations (~1.8 million-300,000 years ago)
5. Residency: The Neanderthals and their Neighbours (~300,000-40,000 years ago)
6. Expansion: The Arrival of Homo Sapiens and the Extinction of the Neanderthals (~50,000 years ago-35,000 years ago)
7. Intensification: Mid-to-Late Upper Palaeolithic Population Dynamics (~35,000 years ago-15,000 years ago)
8. Palaeolithic Europe: Demography and Society.

Subject Areas: Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA], Archaeology by period / region [HDD], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], History: earliest times to present day [HBL], History [HB], Humanities [H]