A multiproxy approach to understanding the impact of the Storegga tsunami upon Mesolithic hunter-fisher-gatherers across different regions of western Norway

作者：James Walker, Astrid J. Nyland, Knut Andreas Bergsvik, Håvard Kilhavn, Steven J. Gibbons, Sylfest Glimsdal · 发表于：Quaternary Science Reviews · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108433 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Geology and Paleoclimatology Research、Archaeology and ancient environmental studies、Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

The Storegga tsunami (c. 8150 cal BP) is geologically well attested from various isolation basins across the west Norwegian coast. Ascertaining the impact it had upon the Mesolithic peoples who lived through it, however, remains a difficult proposition; one further complicated by broadly synchronic processes of climate change and sea-level rise. This paper presents a regional scale approach to addressing this matter through a multiproxy study comprising: 1) the performance of a new numerical tsunami run-up simulation for six different focus areas; 2) characterising the impact of the tsunami upon key resource base ecosystems; 3) characterising the potential for complication arising from contemporaneous processes of environmental change caused by the ‘8.2 ka BP event', and sea-level rise associated with the early-mid Holocene ‘Tapes’ transgression, and 4) the reconstruction of temporal traditions in site location relative to the contemporary palaeoshoreline within the six focus areas used for the numerical simulation. Severity of run-up and inundation is found to be acutely variable according to coastal geomorphology and topography, bathymetry, and proximity to the propagation centre. Although the tsunami may have had a severely negative impact upon some coastal inhabitants and ecosystems, it is not possible from current evidence to reliably infer unequivocal impacts relating to the tsunami through the archaeological record, nor is it clear that impact upon key ecosystem compon...