This paper reviews the evidence for long term trends in anthropogenic activity and population dynamics across the Holocene in the central Mediterranean and the chronology of cultural events. The evidence for this has been constituted in a database of 4608 radiocarbon dates (of which 4515 were retained for analysis following initial screening) from 1195 archaeological sites in southern France, Italy and Malta, spanning the Mesolithic to Early Iron Age periods, c. 8000 to 500 BC. We provide an overview of the settlement record for central Mediterranean prehistory and add to this an assessment of the available archaeological radiocarbon evidence in order to review the traditional narratives on the prehistory of the region. This new chronology has enabled us to identify the most significant points in time where activity levels, population dynamics and cultural change have together caused strong temporal patterning in the archaeological record. Some of these episodes were localized to one region, whereas others were part of pan-regional trends and cultural trajectories that took many centuries to play out fully, revealing prehistoric societies subject to collapse, recovery, and continuing instability over the long-term. Using the radiocarbon evidence, we model growth rates in the various regions so that the tempo of change at certain points in space and time can be identified, compared, and discussed in the context of demographic change. Using other published databases of radiocarbon data, we have drawn comparisons across the central Mediterranean to wider prehistoric Europe, and northern Africa. Finally, we include a brief response to the synchronously published but independently developed paper (Palmisano et al. in J World Prehist 34(3), 2021). While there are differences in our respective approaches, we share the general conclusions that large-scale trends can been identified through meta-analyses of the archaeological record, and these offer new perspectives on how society functioned.

本文回顾了地中海中部全新世人类活动和人口动态长期趋势的证据以及文化事件的年表。这方面的证据已在包含来自法国南部、意大利和马耳他的 1195 个考古遗址的 4608 个放射性碳日期（其中 4515 个在初步筛选后保留用于分析）的数据库中构成，这些考古遗址跨越中石器时代到早期铁器时代，c。公元前 8000 至 500 年。我们概述了地中海中部史前史的定居记录，并添加了对可用考古放射性碳证据的评估，以回顾对该地区史前史的传统叙述。这种新的年表使我们能够确定活动水平、人口动态和文化变迁共同在考古记录中造成了强烈的时间模式。其中一些事件只发生在一个地区，而另一些则是泛地区趋势和文化轨迹的一部分，这些趋势和文化轨迹需要几个世纪才能完全发挥出来，揭示了史前社会长期处于崩溃、复苏和持续不稳定的状态。使用放射性碳证据，我们对不同地区的增长率进行建模，以便在人口变化的背景下识别、比较和讨论某些时空点的变化速度。使用其他已发布的放射性碳数据数据库，我们将地中海中部与更广泛的史前欧洲和北非进行了比较。最后，我们包括对同步发表但独立开发的论文（Palmisano 等人在 J World Prehist 34(3), 2021 中）的简短回应。虽然我们各自的方法存在差异，但我们一致认为可以通过考古记录的元分析确定大规模趋势，这些为社会如何运作提供了新的视角。