Ground slate technology is a trademark of circumpolar hunter-gatherers occupying coastal ecotones. However, a causal framework for explaining what drives the apparent adaptive success of slate technology is lacking. Attempting to remedy this, the current paper provides the first palaeodemographic and environmentally informed review of a maritime slate complex. Employing what is arguably the best documented and contextually controlled slate industry in Holocene Eurasia as a high-resolution case study (the Arctic Norwegian slate industry), the system components of demography, ecology and technology are integrated to get at (1) why slate technology appears to be a particular maritime success, (2) what causal contribution slate technology makes to population-scale adaptive success, (3) why slate technology was eventually abandoned. Based on extensive empirical investigations, the results demonstrate synchronous changes in population size, maritime intensification and the use of slate technologies. It is suggested that the mechanism responsible for this correspondence is that the slate industry facilitated a heightened adaptive success, reinforcing population growth and maritime intensification. Technological results indicate that superior properties for standardization make the slate technology ideal for establishing a scale economy in maritime resource exploitation when surpassing critical thresholds in population packing. Causal modelling demonstrates that, under particular demographic and ecological conditions, the scalar properties of slate technologies can offset high- and density-dependent start-up costs, by increasing return rates and reducing handling costs of hunting/processing of marine resources. Satisfying all criteria for tool “efficiency”, it is concluded that slate industries have causal efficacy as an “enabling technology” in circumpolar, maritime settings.

板岩技术是占领沿海过渡带的极地狩猎采集者的商标。但是，缺乏解释什么驱动板岩技术获得明显成功的因果框架。为了解决这个问题，本论文提供了关于海面综合体的第一个古生物学和环境知情的综述。利用可以说是全新世欧亚大陆最好的有据可查和受上下文相关控制的板岩产业作为高分辨率案例研究（北极挪威板岩产业），人口统计学，生态学和技术的系统组成部分进行了整合，以了解（1）为什么板岩技术似乎是特定的海上成功，（2）板岩技术对人口规模适应性成功的因果贡献，（3）为什么板岩技术最终被放弃。在广泛的实证研究基础上，研究结果表明，人口规模，海洋集约化程度和使用板岩技术的同步变化。有人认为，造成这种对应关系的机制是，石板产业促进了适应性成功的提高，促进了人口增长和海洋集约化。技术结果表明，超过人口临界阈值时，卓越的标准化性能使板岩技术成为建立海洋资源开发规模经济的理想之选。因果模型表明，在特定的人口和生态条件下，板岩技术的标量特性可以抵消高密度依赖的启动成本，通过提高回报率并减少狩猎/加工海洋资源的处理成本。满足工具“效率”的所有标准，得出的结论是，板岩产业在绕极海上环境中具有因果关系，作为“使能技术”。