The cooling and drying associated with the so-called '8.2 ka event' have long been hypothesized as having sweeping implications for human societies in the Early Holocene, including some of the last Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Atlantic Europe. Nevertheless, detailed 'on-site' records with which the impacts of broader climate changes on human-relevant environments can be explored have been lacking. Here, we reconstruct sea surface temperatures (SST) from δ18O values measured on subfossil topshells Phorcus lineatus exploited by the Mesolithic human groups that lived at El Mazo cave (N Spain) between 9 and 7.4 ka. Bayesian modelling of 65 radiocarbon dates, in combination with this δ18O data, provide a high-resolution seasonal record of SST, revealing that colder SST during the 8.2 ka event led to changes in the availability of different shellfish species. Intensification in the exploitation of molluscs by humans indicates demographic growth in these Atlantic coastal settings which acted as refugia during this cold event.

Centre de Recherche en Archéologie Archeosciences Histoire UMR 6566 Université de Rennes 1 Rennes France

Departamento de Ciencias Humanas Universidad de La Rioja Logroño Spain

Department of Archaeology Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Jena Germany

Department of Archaeology University of Cambridge Downing Street Cambridge CB2 3DZ UK

Department of Prehistory and Institute of Environmental Science and Technology Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Bellaterra Spain

Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Instituto de Geociencias Madrid Spain

Faculty of Arts Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Grupo de 1 D 1 EVOADAPTA Departamento de Ciencias Históricas Universidad de Cantabria Santander Spain

ICArEHB Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and the Evolution of Human Behaviour Universidade Do Algarve Faro Portugal

Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria Universidad de Cantabria Santander Gobierno de Cantabria Santander Spain

Laboratorio de Evolución Humana IsoTOPIK Stable Isotope Laboratory Universidad de Burgos Burgos Spain

School of Archaeology University of Oxford Oxford UK

School of Social Sciences University of Queensland Queensland Australia

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