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LOS MAYAS Y EL NIÑO

Paleoclimatic correlations, environmental dynamics, and cultural implications for the ancient Maya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2002

Lewis C. Messenger
Lewis C. Messenger
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Hamline University, 1536 Hewitt Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55104, USA
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Abstract

During the spring of 1998, an El Niño event produced harsh drought conditions in much of Mexico, including the Maya area. Similar events surely occurred in the distant past. This paper reports on investigation of chronological correlations between El Niño event sequences as suggested by glacial ice-core data from Quelccaya in the Peruvian Andes, historical-severity-ranked El Niño event sequences, and historical drought documentation for the Maya area. Positive correlations between Andean ice-core data sets and historical sequences were expected to provide evidence for earlier discrete El Niño event sequences as far back as A.D. 470 that could be used as proxy data to reconstruct annual El Niño events affecting southern Mesoamerica, including the Maya Classic through Postclassic periods. Correlations of these data sets proved inconclusive, suggesting the need for alternative approaches toward reconstructing discrete El Niño sequences for the Maya area.

Type
SPECIAL SECTION: SPECIAL SECTION: HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGY IN THE MAYA AREA
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , January 2002 , pp. 159 - 170
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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