KEYCON · When keystone species converge: a transdisciplinary study of human-beaver interactions in Atlantic north-west Europe (6000-3000 BC)

The European beaver (Castor fiber) is central to rewilding schemes in north-west Europe today due to its role as a keystone species. However, its engineering feats are also an increasing source of human-wildlife conflict. While these challenges are unique to our time, prior to near-extinction beavers interacted with humans and their environments for over 10,000 years. Yet, there is little systematic data on these dynamics in the past. KEYCON comparatively investigates the changing interactions between humans and beavers – two keystone species – during the Atlantic period (6000-3000 BC) in Denmark and the Netherlands, across the pivotal transition from foraging to farming and a period of changing climate. Few studies have considered how the critical changes in human land use and subsistence impacted human-wildlife relationships beyond diet. Achieving new understanding of these issues is hampered by the lack of knowledge of how human and wild fauna domains intersected in the past, a lack of focused studies of wild fauna remains, and a persevering anthropocentric perspective on past human-nonhuman relationships. To address these challenges, KEYCON integrates computational ecological modelling and zooarchaeological techniques in a transdisciplinary approach encompassing archaeology, multi-species anthropology, and conservation biology. Utilising the rich yet untapped dataset of prehistoric beaver assemblages from Denmark and the Netherlands, KEYCON provides a novel perspective on human-beaver interactions in the past. Using the resulting insights, KEYCON seeks also to contribute a data-driven, deep-time perspective on current rewilding schemes, the success of which is predicated on how the socio-ecological dynamics between humans and wild animals are addressed, and on robust ecological baselines. Mobilising a unique archaeological dataset, KEYCON will provide essential longue durée data and perspectives on both of these aspects.