Successive generations of hunter–gatherers of the Late Glacial and Early Holocene in Iberia had to contend with rapidly changing environments and climatic conditions. This constrained their economic resources and capacity for demographic growth. The Atlantic façade of Iberia was occupied throughout these times and witnessed very significant environmental transformations. Archaeology offers a perspective on how past human population ecologies changed in response to this scenario. Archaeological radiocarbon data are used here to reconstruct demographics of the region over the long term. We introduce various quantitative methods that allow us to develop palaeodemographic and spatio-temporal models of population growth and density, and compare our results to independent records of palaeoenvironmental and palaeodietary change, and growth rates derived from skeletal data. Our results demonstrate that late glacial population growth was stifled by the Younger Dryas stadial, but populations grew in size and density during the Early to Middle Holocene transition. This growth was fuelled in part by an increased dependence on marine and estuarine food sources, demonstrating how the environment was linked to demographic change via the resource base, and ultimately the carrying capacity of the environment.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography’.

伊比利亚晚冰期和全新世早期的几代狩猎采集者不得不应对快速变化的环境和气候条件。这限制了它们的经济资源和人口增长能力。伊比利亚的大西洋立面在这段时间里一直有人居住，见证了非常显着的环境变化。考古学提供了一个视角，了解过去的人口生态如何因这种情况而发生变化。这里使用考古放射性碳数据来重建该地区的长期人口统计数据。我们引入了各种定量方法，使我们能够开发人口增长和密度的古人口学和时空模型，并将我们的结果与古环境和古饮食变化的独立记录进行比较，和来自骨骼数据的增长率。我们的研究结果表明，晚冰期人口增长被新仙女木的 stadial 扼杀，但在早期到中期全新世过渡期间，人口规模和密度有所增长。这种增长的部分原因是对海洋和河口食物来源的依赖增加，这表明环境如何通过资源基础与人口变化以及最终环境的承载能力相关联。

本文是主题问题“史前人口学的跨学科方法”的一部分。