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Climate change and population history in the pacific lowlands of Southern Mesoamerica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Hector Neff ,
Deborah M. Pearsall ,
John G. Jones ,
Bárbara Arroyo de Pieters  and
Dorothy E. Freidel
Hector Neff*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Institute for Integrated Research in Materials, Environments, and Societies, California State University-Long Beach Long Beach, CA 90840-1003, USA
Deborah M. Pearsall
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, 107 Swallow Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211-1440, USA
John G. Jones
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, PO Box 644910, College 150, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4910, USA
Bárbara Arroyo de Pieters
Affiliation:
Centro de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Antropológicas, Universidad del Valle, 18 Avenida 11-95, Zona 15, Vista Hermosa III, Guatemala, Guatemala
Dorothy E. Freidel
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Sonoma State University, 1801 East Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park, CA 94928, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail address:[email protected] (H. Neff).
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Abstract

Core MAN015 from Pacific coastal Guatemala contains sediments accumulated in a mangrove setting over the past 6500 yr. Chemical, pollen, and phytolith data, which indicate conditions of estuarine deposition and terrigenous inputs from adjacent dry land, document Holocene climate variability that parallels the Maya lowlands and other New World tropical locations. Human population history in this region may be driven partly by climate variation: sedentary human populations spread rapidly through the estuarine zone of the lower coast during a dry and variable 4th millennium B.P. Population growth and cultural florescence during a long, relatively moist period (2800–1200 B.P.) ended around 1200 B.P., a drying event that coincided with the Classic Maya collapse.

Keywords

PaleoclimateClimate variationHoloceneMesoamericaGuatemalaMayaMangrovesHuman populationPollenGeochemistry
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , May 2006 , pp. 390 - 400
Copyright
University of Washington

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