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LATE HOLOCENE FIRE AND AGRICULTURE IN THE COPAN VALLEY, HONDURAS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2003

David Rue
Affiliation:
Archaeological and Historical Consultants, Inc., P.O. Box 482, Centre Hall, PA 16828, USA
David Webster
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Alfred Traverse
Affiliation:
Department of Geosciences, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA

Abstract

Pollen and charcoal analysis of a 5.3-m sediment core from Aguada Petapilla, a peat bog, provides evidence of late Holocene vegetation and fire history in the Copan Valley, Honduras. Low concentration and preservation problems characterized the pollen flora, but there are taxa present indicative of major agricultural trends, including Zea mays. Microscopic charcoal fragments are well represented and record continued burning in the region since the lowest level of the core (5700 B.P. [3750 B.C.]). Presence of Zea indicates that maize farming was initiated by as early as 2300 B.C. Three peaks in charcoal-fragment frequencies occur in periods centered approximately at 900 B.C., 400 B.C., and A.D. 600. Fires in this relatively dry region of the southern Maya Lowlands (whose mean annual rainfall is about 1,400 mm) could have resulted from natural forest fires or human agricultural clearing at any time in the Holocene. This contrasts with wetter areas of tropical Central and South America (mean annual rainfall of about 2,500–4,000 mm) where significant climatic drying is required to ignite primary tropical forest.

Type
SPECIAL SECTION: HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGY IN THE MAYA AREA, PART 2
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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