Cultural implications of late Holocene climate change in the Cuenca Oriental, Mexico

Abstract

There is currently no consensus on the importance of climate change in Mesoamerican prehistory. Some invoke drought as a causal factor in major cultural transitions, including the abandonment of many sites at 900 CE, while others conclude that cultural factors were more important. This lack of agreement reflects the fact that the history of climate change in many regions of Mesoamerica is poorly understood. We present paleolimnological evidence suggesting that climate change was important in the abandonment of Cantona between 900 CE and 1050 CE. At its peak, Cantona was one of the largest cities in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, with a population of 90,000 inhabitants. The site is located in the Cuenca Oriental, a semiarid basin east of Mexico City. We developed a subcentennial reconstruction of regional climate from a nearby maar lake, Aljojuca. The modern climatology of the region suggests that sediments record changes in summer monsoonal precipitation. Elemental geochemistry (X-ray fluorescence) and δ18O from authigenic calcite indicate a centennial-scale arid interval between 500 CE and 1150 CE, overlaid on a long-term drying trend. Comparison of this record to Cantona’s chronology suggests that both the city’s peak population and its abandonment occurred during this arid period. The human response to climate change most likely resulted from the interplay of environmental and political factors. During earlier periods of Cantona’s history, increasing aridity and political unrest may have actually increased the city’s importance. However, by 1050 CE, this extended arid period, possibly combined with regional political change, contributed to the city’s abandonment.

Climatic variability and human impact during the last 2000 years in western Mesoamerica: evidence of late Classic (AD 600–900) and Little Ice Age drought events

“…This late Classic drought has been identified in several records from Mexico, particularly from Yucatan (Hodell et al, 2005a;Metcalfe et al, 2010;Caballero et al, 2002;Lozano-García et al, 2010;Curtis et al, 1996;Bhattacharya et al, 2015) (Fig. 1), to the extent that it is referred to as the "Great Maya Drought" (Gill, 2001) and has been put forward as an important factor in the collapse of the Maya culture at the end of the Classic (AD 850 to 950).…”

“…1): (a) ostracode valve concentrations from Lake Santa María del Oro (SMO; this study); (b) titanium record from Lake Juanacatlán (Metcalfe et al, 2010); (c) magnetic susceptibility and Chydourus cf. sphaericus abundance from Lake La Luna (Cuna et al, 2014); (d) diatom-based lake level fluctuations from Lake Chignahuapan (Caballero et al, 2002); (e) bulk sediment calcite δ 18 O from Lake Aljojuca (Bhattacharya et al, 2015); (f) diatom-based lake level fluctuations from Lago Verde (Lozano-García et al, 2010); (g) biogenic calcite δ 18 O from Aguada X'caamal (Hodell et al, 2005b); (h) sediment density from Lake Chichancanab (Hodell et al, 2005a); (i) biogenic calcite δ 18 O from Punta Laguna (Curtis et al, 1996). (j) titanium record from marine Cariaco Basin .…”

“…Chignahuapan (Caballero et al, 2002), 4. Aljojuca (Bhattacharya et al, 2015), 5. Lago Verde (Lozano-García et al, 2007;LozanoGarcia et al, 2005), 6.…”

The Holocene history of the North American Monsoon: ‘known knowns’ and ‘known unknowns’ in understanding its spatial and temporal complexity

“…Published records to date continue to come from sites in the centre and west of the TMVB, although records are emerging from basins to the east, especially in the Oriental with its deep crater lakes, which have the potential to yield valuable high-resolution sequences (e.g. Caballero et al, 2003;Bhattacharya et al, 2015). There has been an increasing focus on high resolution records of the last millennium (e.g.…”

Response of arid northeast Mexico to global climate changes during the late Pleistocene to the middle Holocene

“…Bhattacharya et al . () studied sediments from the maar lake Aljojuca and observed a prolonged dry phase at ~1.5–0.8 cal ka BP (Figure ). The Yucatan Peninsula also experienced a contemporary arid interval (~1 cal ka BP; Curtis et al, ; Hodell et al, ; Roy et al, ).…”