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Cold conditions may not have been responsible for the centuries-long pause in the spread of farming across south-eastern Europe during prehistory, according to a new study by the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) in Germany, published in the journal PNAS. Researchers found no evidence of extreme cold at the Greek archaeological site of Franchthi, nor any statistically significant link between local temperature fluctuations and changes in how people obtained their food.
The spread of farming into Europe was one of the major transformations of prehistory. From its origins in the Near East, agriculture reached Europe from around 7,000 BC. At first, farming communities expanded only slowly. Then, between about 6,600 and 6,000 BC, their movement beyond Greece almost stopped for around 600 years. When expansion resumed, it happened remarkably quickly: within roughly 500 years, farming communities had spread along the Mediterranean coast as far as Portugal.
Did climate bring the expansion to a halt?
One possible explanation has been a period of sudden and unpredictable cooling, including the abrupt climate change known as the 8.2-kiloyear event, around 8,200 years ago. “This period coincided with rapid climate change, when particularly cold winters may have occurred,” says Dr Niklas Hausmann of LEIZA, who led the study. “Extreme cold could have reduced agricultural yields and made it harder for people to establish new settlements.” But did these cold conditions actually occur where people were living – and did they affect their subsistence practices? To find out, the researchers reconstructed local temperatures at Franchthi, a key archaeological site in the Peloponnese (Greece), and compared the results with archaeological evidence for the subsistence practices of the people who lived there.
Limpet shells reveal past temperatures
The team turned to an unusual source of climate information: the shells of 121 limpets (Patella sp.) recovered from Franchthi. The limpets had been eaten by the site's inhabitants, leaving their shells behind as food waste. As the shells grow, they record information about the environmental conditions in which the animals lived. Using a specially developed laser-based technique, the researchers were able to identify the shells' seasonal growth phases precisely. They then analysed oxygen isotopes in the shells to reconstruct seasonal temperature extremes during these growth phases. The result is the largest high-resolution dataset of its kind so far obtained from a single archaeological site.
No sign that cold changed people's diet
The researchers then compared the reconstructed temperatures with animal bones from the same archaeological layers. These remains provide evidence of which animals people used and how important they were to their diet. This allowed the team to test directly at the site whether changes in temperature coincided with changes in people's subsistence practices. “Our results show that there is no direct evidence of extreme cold and no strong and statistically significant relationship between local climate fluctuations and the subsistence practices of the people,” says Dr Danai Theodoraki, co-author of the study at LEIZA. “For Franchthi, there is therefore no evidence that cold conditions affected food supplies severely enough to prevent the spread of farming.”
Climate was not the only possible factor
“The results of our study do not mean that climate played no role for people,” says Hausmann. “They show instead that, at this coastal site, short-term cold does not provide the explanation previously assumed for the delay in the spread of farming. Other possible factors – including social, economic and cultural developments – therefore deserve greater attention.”
The researchers now plan to apply their method to other archaeological sites. This will help establish whether Franchthi was unusual, or whether evidence from other locations points to a broader pattern in the role of short-term climate events in human decision-making during prehistory.
The research forms part of the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group SEAFRONT at LEIZA, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and led by Hausmann. The project investigates the relationship between seasonal climate fluctuations and human behaviour during the Neolithic period in the Mediterranean region, addressing a key challenge in the study of human–environment interactions.
Dr Niklas Hausmann
Leader Emmy Noether Junior Research Group SEAFRONT
Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA), Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)6131 8885-333 | Mail niklas.hausmann@leiza.de
N. Hausmann & D. Theodoraki (2026), On-site, subannual climate records decouple Neolithic expansion from climate instability, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (45) e2607859123
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2607859123
The laser-based method developed by the SEAFRONT research group together with collaborators from Gre ...
Source: Sabine Steidl
Copyright: © LEIZA / Sabine Steidl
SEAFRONT research at the Franchthi site combines large amounts of climate data with archaeological e ...
Source: Danai Theodoraki
Copyright: © LEIZA / Danai Theodoraki
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Biology, Cultural sciences, Environment / ecology, History / archaeology, Oceanology / climate
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English
The laser-based method developed by the SEAFRONT research group together with collaborators from Gre ...
Source: Sabine Steidl
Copyright: © LEIZA / Sabine Steidl
SEAFRONT research at the Franchthi site combines large amounts of climate data with archaeological e ...
Source: Danai Theodoraki
Copyright: © LEIZA / Danai Theodoraki
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