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- Population dynamics during the Neolithic transition and the onset of megalithism in Portugal according to summed probability distribution of radiocarbon determinationsPublication . Pardo-Gordo, Salvador; Carvalho, AFAs field data accumulates, the study of Neolithic Portugal has been receiving increasing attention recently, from material culture and subsistence to ideology. However, little is known about population dynamics. In this paper, we use a judicious selection of radiocarbon determinations to evaluate demographic phenomena within the 9.500-5.000 cal BP range (thus, starting in the Late Mesolithic) making use of "summed probability distribution" analysis. In greater Portugal, results show a negative deviation (i.e. demographic decrease) at 6.400-6.300 cal BP and a positive deviation (i.e. demographic increase) at 5.350-4.950 cal BP. These can be explained, respectively, by the impact of farming about one millennium after its introduction (confirming the "Neolithic demographic transition" model) and by the full establishment of the "secondary products revolution" in the Late Neolithic. However, individual analyses of the northern and southern halves of the country-i.e. using the Mondego river valley as an ecological-geographical divide-show rather contrasting trajectories, with scarce Mesolithic populations and a demographic increase in the megalithism in the North, whereas in the South a demographic crisis occurred at the onset of megalithism (which remains to be fully explained) being followed in the Late Neolithic by a sharp demographic increase. Further summed probability distribution analyses of radiocarbon determinations, particularly if combined with other populational proxies, will be able in the future to detect other demographic events taking place in space and time.
- A two-stage economic evolution at the inception of farming in Central Portugal. Preliminary examination of possible causes and consequencesPublication . Carvalho, AFNotwithstanding their scarcity and uneven distribution, zooarchaeological and stable isotope data sets on the Early and Middle Neolithic (5500-3200 cal BC) in the region of Estremadura in Central Portugal strongly suggest that two succeeding stages in subsistence strategies took place: sheep and goat itinerant pastoralism (across large areas) and/or renewed focus on wild food sources (cervid hunting, harvesting marine and freshwater food) which replaced livestock farming within smaller areas and less specialised hunting practices. This economic shift seems to have coincided with two other dramatic changes: the 5.9 kyr cal BP climate event and the onset of megalithism. Possible correlations between these past cultural and palaeoenvironmental phenomena are herein preliminarily outlined.