AN EXAMINATION OF HUMAN THERMAL ENVIRONMENTS IN THE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

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Research on human physiological responses to thermal stress highlights limitations in our ability to cope with the cold. As endotherms, humans can induce certain biological defensive mechanisms in reaction to cold exposure, but our lack of body hair presents significant challenges for effective thermoregulation. The origins of human thermal environments are beginning to be discussed in the literature, with growing appreciation that hominin species in high latitudes needed technological adaptations such as fire, shelter and clothing. Computational analysis comparing climatic reconstructions and site distributions from the Upper Palaeolithic demonstrates that communities from this period regularly operated in areas that required additional thermal protection, reinforcing the necessity of these adaptations. Whilst the decay of organic matter has prevented more than speculative research for earlier species of humans, we see a range of archaeological evidence for modern humans' use of these technological adaptations throughout Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic. These include evidence of fire through the remains of hearth structures, shelter in the form of postholes and pits surrounding hearths or the remains of impressive mammoth bone constructions, and clothing through the appearance of needles, imprints of textiles, and bead placements in graves. Whilst some of these examples have been subjected to artistic or physical reconstruction, there is relatively little scientific study of how they functioned as thermal protection for their human inhabitants. Moreover, more traditional examinations of Upper Palaeolithic Europe have tended to focus on Western European sites, despite Eastern and Central Europe having some of the best examples of free-standing structures during this period (in opposition to the cave structures seen throughout Western Europe). This PhD therefore aims to use a combination of ethnographic, computational and experimental methods to explore how Upper Palaeolithic people in Eastern and Central Europe may have altered their immediate environments to cope with thermal stress.