World-changing climatic events through high-latitude and high-precision tree-ring records

A climatic event over four thousand years ago marks the onset of the so-called Meghalayan era lasting until the present Anthropocene. This ‘4.2 ka event’ had world-changing impacts on human cultures – it has been linked to destruction of Egyptian, Sumerian and Indus valley cultures through a massive drought. Its aftermaths coincide with and predate the significant changes also in Finland: the suggested genetic bottleneck in Finnish population, the observed geographical differences in human activity, the onset of Bronze Age and the advance of cultivation in Finland. FITRE consortium of University of Helsinki and Natural Resources Institute Finland forms synthesis of these paleoclimatic events through exactly-dated tree-ring isotopic and density measurements, and adresses their interaction with the past cultures through radiocarbon datings of archaeological material and by analysing the event orderings to assess causes and effects.