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Holocene environmental change and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in north-west Europe: revisiting two models

Abstract Two previously proposed models relating the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition to environmental change in north-west Europe are critically re-examined in the light of accumulating palaeoenvironmental data, and a realistic appraisal of spatial and temporal resolution. The first deals with declining marine productivity in the western Baltic, and the other with a proposed shift to drier, more continental conditions across north-west Europe. Both models are found to be unsatisfactory, although the case for southern Scandinavia seems to hold greater potential, at least for this region. Problems arise in the spatial scale over which climate change models are intended to apply, and over poor chronological resolution. Understanding the extent and nature of climate change at the relevant period, c. 6000/5800 cal. BP, is far from straightforward, as is the chain of causality between this and the adoption of mixed farming as a way of life.