Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T19:00:21.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Climate Variability on the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico) during the Past 3500 Years, and Implications for Maya Cultural Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jason H. Curtis ,
David A. Hodell  and
Mark Brenner
Jason H. Curtis
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32611
David A. Hodell
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32611
Mark Brenner
Affiliation:
Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, University of Florida, 7922 NW 71st Street, Gainesville, Florida, 32653
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Climate variability on the Yucatan Peninsula during the past 3500 yrs is reconstructed from the measurement of δ18O in monospecific ostracods and gastropods in a 6.3-m sediment core from Lake Punta Laguna, Mexico. This late Holocene record is divided into three periods based on changes in mean δ18O values. From ∼3310 to ∼1785 14C yr B.P. (Period I), low mean δ18O values indicate relatively wet conditions (i.e., low evaporation to precipitation ratio, E/P). Mean oxygen isotopic values increased ∼1785 14C yr B.P., and the interval between ∼1785 and ∼930 14C yr B.P. (Period II) was distinctly drier than the periods before or after. The climate during the latter part of Period II was persistently dry, with exceptionally arid events centered at ∼1171, 1019, and 943 14C yr B.P. (equivalent to 862, 986, and 1051 A.D.). This interval of frequent drought was recorded at several other localities in Mexico and Central America, and coincided with the collapse of Classic Maya civilization. Following the last arid event, δ18O values decreased abruptly at ∼930 14C yr B.P. (beginning of Period III), signaling a return to wetter conditions that have generally prevailed to the present, with the exception of a dry episode centered at 559 14C yr B.P. (1391 A.D.). The paleoclimatic record from Punta Laguna provides evidence that multi-decadal and millennial-scale changes in E/Poccurred on the Yucatan Peninsula during the late Holocene. These wet/dry episodes may have influenced cultural evolution in Mesoamerica.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , July 1996 , pp. 37 - 47
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

Abell, P. I., (1985). Oxygen isotope ratios in modern African gastropodshells: A data base for paleoclimatology. Chemical Geology (IsotopeGeoscience Section) 58, 183–193. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
APHA (American Public Health Association) (1992). “Standard Methodsfor the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 18th ed. ” American PublicHealth Association, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Bradbury, J. P., (1982). Holocene chronostratigraphy of Mexico and Central America. Striae 16, 46–48. Google Scholar
Castillo, A. B., and Peraza, R. L. Z., (1991). Punta Laguna: Un sitio prehispá-nico de Quintana Roo. Estudios de Cultura Maya 18, 23–64. Google Scholar
Chivas, A. R., De Deckker, P., Cail, J. A., Chapman, A., Kiss, E., and Shelley, J. M. G., (1993). Coupled stable-isotopic and trace-element mea-surements of lacustrine carbonates as paleoclimatic indicators. In “Cli-mate Change in Continental Isotopic Records” (Swart, P. K., Lohmann, K. C., McKenzie, J., and Savin, S., Eds. ) , pp. 113–121. American Geo-physical Union, Washington.Google Scholar
Coe, M. D., (1987). “The Maya. ” Thames and Hudson, London. Google Scholar
Covich, A., and Stuiver, M., (1974). Changes in oxygen 18 as a measure of long-term fluctuations in tropical lake levels and molluscan populations. Limnology and Oceanography 19, 682–691. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, H., (1965). The measurement of oxygen isotope paleotemperatures. In “Proceedings of the Spoleto Conference on Stable Isotopes in Oceano-graphic Studies and Paleotemperatures” (Tongiorgi, E., Ed. ) , pp. 161–182. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Laboratorio di Geologia Nucleare, Pisa. Google Scholar
Craig, H., and Gordon, L. I., (1965). Deuterium and oxygen-18 variationsin the ocean and the marine atmosphere. In “Proceedings of the Spoleto Conference on Stable Isotopes in Oceanographic Studies and Paleotem-peratures” (Tongiorgi, E., Ed. ) , pp. 1–22. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Laboratorio de Geologia Nucleare, Pisa. Google Scholar
Curtis, J. H., and Hodell, D. A., (1993). An isotopic and trace element study of ostracods from Lake Miragoane, Haiti: A 10,500 year record of paleosalinity and paleotemperature change in the Caribbean. In “Climate Change in Continental Isotopic Records” (Swart, P. K., Lohmann, K. C., McKenzie, J., and Savin, S., Eds. ) , pp. 135–152. Google Scholar
American Geophysical Union, Washington, D. C., Dahlin, B. H., (1983). Climate and prehistory on the Yucatan Peninsula. Climatic Change 5, 245–263. Google Scholar
Deevey, E. S., and Stuiver, M., (1964). Distribution of natural isotopes ofcarbon in Linsley Pond and other New England lakes. Limnology and Oceanography 9, 1–11. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durazzi, J. T., (1977). Stable isotopes in ostracod shell: A preliminary study. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 41, 1168–1170. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engleman, E. E., Jackson, L. L., and Norton, D. R., (1985). Determinationof carbonate carbon in geological materials by coulometric titration. Journal of Great Lakes Research 2, 307–323. Google Scholar
Fisher, M. M., Brenner, M., and Reddy, K. R., (1992). A simple, inexpensivepiston corer for collecting undisturbed sediment/water interface profiles. Journal of Paleolimnology 7, 157–161. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folan, W. J., and Hyde, B. H., (1985). Climatic forecasting and recordingamong the ancient and historic Maya: An ethnohistoric approach to epis-temological and paleoclimatological patterning. In “Contributions to the Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Greater Mesoamerica” (Folan, W. J., Ed. ) , pp. 15–48. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Folan, W. J., Kintz, E. R., and Fletcher, L. A., (1983). “Coba: A ClassicMaya Metropolis. ” Academic Press, New York. Google Scholar
Fontes, J. C., and Gonfiantini, R., (1967). Comportement isotopique au coursde l'evaporation de deux bassins sahariens. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 3, 258–266. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, P., and Poplawski, S., (1974). 18O and 13C in the shells of freshwatermolluscs and their environments. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 24, 91–98. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gasse, F., Techet, R., Durand, A., Gilbert, E., and Fontes, J. C., (1990). The arid-humid transition in the Sahara and Sahel during the last glacia-tion. Nature 346, 141–146. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, R. B., (1995). “The Great Maya Droughts. ” Unpublished Ph. D. disser-tation, University of Texas, Austin. Google Scholar
Grossman, E. L., and Ku, T., (1981). Aragonite-water isotopic paleotempera-ture scale based on the benthic foraminifer Hoeglundina elegans. Geological Society of America, Annual Meetings, Abstracts with Programs 13, 464. Google Scholar
Gunn, J., and Adams, R. E. W., (1981). Climatic change, culture, and civili-zation in North America. World Archaeology 13, 87–100. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hastenrath, S., (1976). Variations in low-latitude circulation and extremeclimatic events in the tropical Americas. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 33, 202–215. 2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hastenrath, S., (1984). Interannual variability and annual cycle: Mechanisms of circulation and climate in the tropical Atlantic sector. Monthly Weather Review 112, 1097–1107. Google Scholar
Hastenrath, S., (1991). “Climatic Dynamics of the Tropics. ” Kluwer Aca-demic Publishers, Dordrecht. Google Scholar
Hastenrath, S., and Kaczmarczyk, E. B., (1981). On spectra and coherence of tropical climate anomalies. Tellus 33, 453–462. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heaton, T. H. E., Holmes, J. A., and Bridgwater, N. D., (1995). Carbon andoxygen isotope variations among lacustrine ostracods: Implications for paleoclimatic studies. The Holocene 5, 428–434. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodell, D. A., Curtis, J. H., Jones, G. A., Higuera-Gundy, A., Brenner, M., Binford, M. W., and Dorsey, K. T., (1991). Reconstruction of Caribbeanclimate change over the past 10,500 years. Nature 352, 790–793. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodell, D. A., Curtis, J. H., and Brenner, M., (1995). Possible role of climatein the collapse of Classic Maya civilization. Nature 375, 391–394. Google Scholar
Holmes, J. A., Street Perrott, F. A., Ivanovich, M., and Perrott, R. A., (1995). A late Quaternary palaeolimnological record from Jamaica based ontrace-element chemistry of ostracod shells. Chemical Geology 124, 143–160. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horn, S. P., and Sanford, R. L. Jr., (1992). Holocene fires in Costa Rica. Biotropica 24, 354–361. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia e Informatica) (1981). 1:1000000 Merida, Carta de Evapotranspiracion y deficit de agua. Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Google Scholar
INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia e Informatica) (1983). 1:1000000 Merida, Carta de Climas. Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Google Scholar
Lean, J., and Warrilow, D. A., (1989). Simulation of the regional climaticimpact of Amazon deforestation. Nature 342, 411–413. Google Scholar
Leyden, B. W., Brenner, M., Whitmore, T. J., Curtis, J. H., Piperno, D. R., and Dahlin, B. H. (in press) . A record of long- and short-term climatevariation from northwest Yucatan: Cenote San Jose Chulchaca. In “The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use” (Fedick, S. L., Ed. ) . University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Google Scholar
Lister, G. S., Kelts, K., Zao, C. K., Yu, J., and Niessen, F., (1991). LakeQinghai, China: Closed-basin lake levels and the oxygen isotope recordfor ostracoda since the latest Pleistocene. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 84, 141–162. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, J. W. G., (1985). “The Dynamics of the Apocalypse. ” Universityof New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Google Scholar
Messenger, L. C. Jr., (1990). Ancient winds of change: Climatic settings and prehistoric social complexity in Mesoamerica. Ancient Mesoamerica 1, 21–40. Google Scholar
Metcalfe, S. E., (1995). Holocene environmental change in the Zacapu Basin, Mexico: A diatom-based record. The Holocene 5, 196–208. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metcalfe, S. E., Street-Perrott, F. A., O'Hara, S. L., Hales, P. E., and Perrott, R. A., (1994). The palaeolimnological record of environmental change: Examples from the arid frontier of Mesoamerica. In “Environmental Change in Drylands: Biogeographical and Geomorphological Perspectives” (Millington, A. C., and Pye, K., Eds. ) , pp. 131–145. Wiley, Chiches-ter. Google Scholar
Ortloff, C. R., and Kolata, A. L., (1993). Climate and collapse: Agro-ecologi-cal perspectives on the decline of the Tiwanaku state. Journal of Archaeological Science 20, 195–221. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozanski, K., Araguás-Araguás, L., and Gonfiantini, R., (1993). Isotopicpatterns of modern global precipitation. In “Climate Change in Continen-tal Isotopic Records” (Swart, P. K., Lohmann, K. C., McKenzie, J., and Savin, S., Eds. ) , pp. 1–36. American Geophysical Union, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Socki, R. A., Karlsson, H. R., and Gibson, E. K., (1992) . Extraction tech-nique for the determination of oxygen-18 in water using preevacuatedglass vials. Analytical Chemistry 64, 829–831. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M., and Becker, B., (1993). High-precision calibration of the radio-carbon time scale AD 1950–6000 BC. Radiocarbon 35, 35–65. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M., and Reimer, P. J., (1993). Extended 14C data base and revisedCalib 3. 0 14C age calibration program. Radiocarbon 35, 215–230. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talbot, M. R., (1990). A review of the palaeohydrological interpretation of carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios in primary lacustrine carbonates. Chemical Geology 80, 261–279. Google Scholar
Thompson, L. G., and Mosley-Thompson, E., (1987). Evidence of abruptclimatic change during the last 1,500 years recorded in ice cores from the tropical Quelccaya ice cap, Peru. In “Abrupt Climatic Change: Evi-dence and Implications” (Berger, W. H., and Labeyrie, L. D., Eds. ) , pp. 99–110. Reidel, Dordrecht. Google Scholar
Thompson, L. G., Mosley-Thompson, E., Bolzan, J. F., and Koci, B. R., (1985). A 1500-year record of tropical precipitation in ice cores from the Quelccaya ice cap, Peru. Science 229, 971–973. Google Scholar
Thompson, L. G., Mosley-Thompson, E., Dansgaard, W., and Grootes, P. M., (1986). The Little Ice Age as recorded in the stratigraphy of the tropical Quelccaya ice cap. Science 234, 361–364. CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thompson, L. G., Davis, M. E., Mosley-Thompson, E., and Liu, K-b., (1988). Pre-Incan agricultural activity recorded in dust layer in two tropi-cal ice cores. Nature 336, 763–765. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitmore, T. J., Brenner, M., Curtis, J. H., Dahlin, B. H., and Leyden, B. W., (in press) . Holocene climatic and human influences on lakes of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico: An interdisciplinary, paleolimnologicalapproach. The Holocene 6. Google Scholar
Wilson, E. M., (1984). Physical geography of the Yucatan Peninsula. In"“Yucatan: A World Apart, ” 2nd printing (Moseley, E. H., and Terry, E. D., Eds. ) , pp. 5–40. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Google Scholar
Wright, H. E. Jr., Mann, D. H., and Glaser, P. H., (1984). Piston corers forpeat and lake sediments. Ecology 65, 657–659. CrossRefGoogle Scholar