Cave deposits above the Arctic Circle – a window into past human and animal distribution in the far north

The January talk will be given by Dr Sam Walker from Bournemouth University who will be talking about his research into ancient fauna.

When the Glaciers retreated during the end of the Late Glacial (c. 14,600-12,900 BP) and into the Early Holocene (11,700-7300 BP), Northern Europe experienced extreme environmental and climatic changes. As the climate warmed and the ice sheets retreated, pioneer species of flora and fauna, including humans, began to expand their ranges and colonise the Scandinavian Peninsula. Unfortunately, there are few known bone deposits recovered, especially above the Arctic Circle dating to this important period. Two active research projects ‘EvoCave’ and ‘Savecave’ are seeking to fill this knowledge gap, with an interdisciplinary team of specialists in the fields of archaeology, speleology, sedimentology and genomics. To date, the projects have excavated six caves in northern Norway, with at least two more planned for the next field season. All have yielded results which greatly improve our understanding of past biodiversity in the region and indications of human use of caves in the past. I will present an overview of the two projects from the exploration of cave environments to excavation, through to the multi-method analysis of the material and the results we have gained so far. As well as the future ambitions of the projects and its impact on local communities in remote locations.

Dr Sam Walker works in the fields of zooarchaeology and palaeozoology. His research has focused largely on past fauna, especially birds in Norway and Scandinavia. Previous work includes a review of Holocene bird distributions across Norway and most recently the excavation and analysis of cave deposits from Northern Norway (the topic of the seminar). Past affiliations include University Museum of Bergen and the University of Oslo. He now holds a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Bournemouth University, working on the project People & Puffins: Developing new scientific methods to investigate how environmental change and exploitation by past communities of Northern Europe has impacted current auk populations. His work aims to better understand how humans and animals interacted in the past and how past climatic, environmental and human influences have shaped the faunal populations and distributions we see today.