Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T23:02:39.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Man and Climate in the Maya Lowlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Barbara W. Leyden
Barbara W. Leyden*
Affiliation:
Florida State Museum, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA Department of Geology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620 USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A 15-m sedimentary core from Lake Salpeten provides the first complete Holocene sequence for the lowlying Peten District, Guatemala. Today, Lake Salpeten is a brackish, calcium sulfate lake near saturation surrounded by tropical semievergreen forest. The basal pollen record depicts sparse juniper scrub surrounding a lake basin that held ephermal pools and halophytic marshes. The lake rapidly deepened to > 27 m in the early Holocene and may have been meromictic, because nearly 2 m of gypsum “mush” was deposited. Mesic forests were quickly established and persisted until the Maya entered the district 3000 yr ago and caused extensive deforestation. Any climatic information contained in the pollen record of the Maya period is thus masked, but a regional pollen sequence linked to the archaeological record is substantiated because environmental disturbance was pervasive. Local intensification of occupation and population growth are seen as an increased deposition of pollen of agricultural weeds and colluviation into the lake, while the Classic Maya collapse is marked by a temporary decline in Compositae pollen. Effects of perturbations induced by the Maya persist in the pollen and limnetic record 400 yr after the Spanish conquest.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , November 1987 , pp. 407 - 414
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R.E.W. Culbert, T.P. The origins of civilization in the Maya lowlands Adams, R.E.W. The Origins of Maya Civilization 1977 Univ. of New Mexico Press Albuquerque 3 24 Google Scholar
Brenner, M. Paleolimnology of the Maya Region. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation 1983 University of Florida Gainesville, FL Google Scholar
Bullard, W.R. Jr. Topoxte a Postclassic Maya site in Peten, Guatemala Bullard, W.R. Monographs and Papers in Maya Archaeology. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Vol. 61 1970 245 307 Cambridge Google Scholar
Bullard, W.R. Jr. Postclassic culture in Central Peten and adjacent British Honduras Culbert, T.P. The Classic Maya Collapse 1973 Univ. of New Mexico Press Abluquerque 221 242 Google Scholar
Culbert, T.P. The Classic Maya Collapse 1973 Univ. of New Mexico Press Albuquerque Google Scholar
Dahlin, B.H. Climate and prehistory on the Yucatan Peninsula. Climatic Change 5 1983 245 263 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deevey, E.S. Jr. Brenner, M. Binford, M.W. Paleolimnology of the Peten Lake District, Guatemala. Hydrobiologia 103 1983 211 216 Google Scholar
Deevey, E.S. Jr. Brenner, M. Flannery, S. Yezdani, G.H. Lakes Yaxha and Sacnab, Peten, Guatemala limnology and hydrology. Archiv fuer Hydrobiologie Supplement Band 57 1980 419 460 Google Scholar
Deevey, E.S. Jr. Rice, D.S. Rice, P.M. Vaughan, H.H. Brenner, M. Flannery, M.S. Mayan urbanism: Impact on a tropical karst environment. Science 206 1979 298 306 Google Scholar
Deevey, E.S. Jr. Stuiver, M. Distribution of natural isotopes of carbon in Linsley Pond and other New England lakes. Limnology and Oceanography 9 1964 1 11 Google Scholar
Hammond, N. Donaghey, S. Berger, R. de Atley, S. Switsur, V.R. Ward, A.P. Maya Formative phase radiocarbon dates from Belize. Nature (London) 267 1977 608 610 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond, N. Pring, D. Berger, R. Switsur, V.R. Ward, A.P. Radiocarbon chronology for early Maya occupation at Cuello, Belize. Nature (London) 260 1976 579 581 Google Scholar
Leyden, B.W. Guatemalan forest synthesis after Pleistocene aridity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 81 1984 4856 4859 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leyden, B.W. Late Quaternary aridity and Holocene moisture fluctuations in the Lake Valencia Basin, Venezuela. Ecology 66 1985 1279 1295 Google Scholar
Lundell, C.L. The Vegetation of the Peten 1937 Carnegie Institute of Washington Washington, DC Google Scholar
Puleston, D.E. The role of ramon in Maya subsistence Flannery, K.V. Maya Subsistence: Studies in Memory of Dennis E. Puleston 1982 Academic Press New York 353 366 Google Scholar
Rice, D.S. The Peten Postclassic: A settlement perspective Sabloff, J.A. Andrews V, E.W. Late Lowland Maya Civilization: Classic to Postclassic 1986 Univ. of New Mexico Press Albuquerque 301 344 Google Scholar
Rice, D.S. Rice, P.M. The Northeast Peten revisited. American Antiquity 45 1980 432 454 Google Scholar
Rice, D.S. Rice, P.M. Collapse to contact: Postclassic archaeology of the Peten Maya. Archaeology 37 1984 46 51 Google Scholar
Rice, P.M. The Peten Postclassic: Prespectives from the Central Peten Lakes Sabloff, J.A. Andrews V, E.W. Late Lowland Maya Civilization: Classic to Postclassic 1986 Univ. of New Mexico Press Albuquerque 251 299 Google Scholar
Standley, P.C. Steyermark, J.A. Flora of Guatemala. Fieldiana, Botany 24 1 1958 26 36 Google Scholar
Tsukada, M. The pollen sequence Cowgill, U.M. Hutchinson, G.E. Racek, A.A. Goulden, C.E. Patrick, R. Tsukada, M. The History of Laguna de Petenxil: A Small Lake in Northern Guatemala. Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences Vol. 17 1966 63 66 New Haven, CT Google Scholar
Tsukada, M. Deevey, E.S. Jr. Pollen analysis from four lakes in the southern Maya area of Guatemala and El Salvador Cushing, E.J. Wright, H.E. Quaternary Paleoecology 1967 Yale Univ. Press New Haven, CT 303 331 Google Scholar
Vaughan, H.H. Deevey, E.S. Jr. Garrett-Jones, S.E. Pollen stratigraphy of two cores from the Peten Lake District, with an appendix on two deep-water cores Pohl, M. Prehistoric Lowland Maya Environment and Subsistence Economy 1985 Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Cambridge, MA 73 89 Google Scholar
Whitehead, D.R. Late-Pleistocene vegetational changes in northeastern North Carolina. Ecological Monographs 51 1981 451 471 Google Scholar