Abstract
Long held notions that climate has been stable over the Yucatan peninsula and that today's climate is an accurate reflection of past climates here are being challenged today by a number of researchers. Both empirical and circumstantial evidence are offered for a prolonged and severe period of dessication in the Maya lowlands and its effects on soils, vegetation, lake levels and ancient Maya cultural processes, ca. 50 B.C. to 500 A.D. After centuries of steady and precocious growth and development, Late Preclassic Maya civilization in the drier northern two thirds of the peninsula abruptly collapsed, probably due to repeated crop failures and decreasing availabilities of potable water due to severe drought conditions. This is nowhere more apparent than at the predominantly Preclassic ruins of El Mirador - the largest known ancient Maya city - which was almost totally abandoned by A.D. 250. Thereafter, the development of classicism was confined to a small and better watered area in extreme northeastern Guatemala, northern Belize and southern Quintana Roo, which was defended from invaders from the north by a line of fortified sites.
Similar content being viewed by others
References and notes
G. R. Willey, A. L. Smith, G. Tourtellot, III, and I. Graham, Pap. Peabody Mus. Aichaeol. Ethnology. Harv. Univ. 13 (1), 20 (1975).
E. Huntington, Civilization and Climate (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 1915); Int. Cong. Amer. 19 (1917).
J. L. Page, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Publi., 431 (1933) and 437 (1938).
R. F. Hatt et al., Cransbrook Inst. Sci. 33 (1953) pp. 3809.
W. A. Sanchez and J. E. Kutzbach, Quarter. Res. 4 (1974).
R. A. Bryson and T. J. Murray, Climates of Hunger (Univ. of Wisc. Press, Madison, 1977).
J. Gunn and R. E. W. Adams. Manuscript.
C. E. P. Brooks, Climate Through the Ages (Dover, New York, 1970); E. Garcia, Bol. Inst. Geogr. 5 (1974); W. M. Wendland and R. A. Bryson, Quart. Res. 4 (1974); H. H. Lamb, Climatic History and the Future (Methuen, London, 1977).
G. Denton and W. Karlen, Quarter. Res. 3 (1973).
See Wendland and Bryson in (8)
U. M. Cowgill and G. E. Hutchinson, Mem. Conn. Aca. Arts and Sci. 17 (1966); M. Tzukada and E. S. Deevey, in Quaternary Paleoecology, E. Cushing and H. Wright Jr. (eds.), (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 1967).
E. S. Deevey, D. S. Rice, P. M. Rice, H. H. Vaughan, M. Brenner, M. S. Flannery, Science 206, 302 (1979).
H. H. Vaughan, paper presented at the Soc. Amer. Archaeol. (1978); Ph. D. dissertation (Univ. Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1979).
H. H. Vaughan, personal communication.
After 500 A.D., seasonality, rainfall and lake levels increased. Evidence of other dry intervals is observable in shell layers and concommitant decreases in aquatic plant pollens in the Quexil core, but climate appears to have resumed its overall moist character at this time.
A. Covich, Limnol. and Oceanogr. 21 (1976).
A. Covich and M. Struiver, Limnol. and Oceanogr. 19 (1974).
L. G. Price, M. A. thesis, Wash. Univ., St. Louis (1974).
Price's stratigraphy also suggests that a high relatively stable lake level had been achieved again by 1000 A.D. and remained so until 1400 A.D.
W. J. Folan, J. Gunn, J. D. Eaton, and R. W. Patch. Unpublished manuscript.
G. E. Stuart, personal communication.
I. Graham, Mid. Amer. Res. Inst. 33 (1967); R. T. Matheny (ed.), El Mirador, Peten Guatemala (New World Archaeol. Found. Publi. 45, 1980).
Contra P. D. Harrison in Social Process in Maya Prehistory, N. Hammond (ed.), (Academic Press, 1977).
B. H. Dahlin, J. E. Foss, M. E. Chambers (New World Archaeol. Found. Publ. 45, 1980).
J. W. Ball, in The Origins of Maya Civilization, R. E. W. Adams (ed.), (Univ. New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1977).
E. Wyllys Andrews, V., personal communication; (7), 117.
R. E. Smith, Pap. Peabody Mus. Archaeol. Ethnology Harv. Univ. 66 (1971).
F. W. Nelson Jr., Pap. New World Archaeol. Found. 33 (1973).
D. Webster, Cuca, Chacchob and Dzonot Ake (Penn. State Univ. Press, University Park, 1979).
D. W. Forsyth, Ph.D. dissertation (Univ. Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1979).
R. T. Matheny, Science 193 (1976).
R.E.W. Adams, in The Origins of Maya Civilization, R. E. W. Adams (ed.), (Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1977).
J.W. Ball, personal communication.
R. Rands, in The Origins of Maya Civilization, R. E. W. Adams (ed.), (Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1977), pp. 161–176.
G. R. Wiley, in The Origins of Maya Civilization, R. E. W. Adams (ed.), (Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1977), p. 151; J. W. Ball, Pap. New World Archaeol. Found. 43 (1980).
W. Back and B. B. Hanshaw, in Geology and Hydrogeology of Northeastern Yucatan, W. G. Ward and A. E. Weidie (eds.), (New Orleans Geol. Soc., 1970).
W. Back, personal communication.
A. S. Pearse, E. P. Greaser, F. G. Hall, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Publ. 457 (1936).
N. Hammond, in Archaeology in Northern Belize, British Mus. Cambridge Univ. Corozal Project, 1974–75 Interim Report (1975).
W. R. Bullard, Pap. Royal Ontario Mus. Art and Archaeol. 9 (1965).
A. H. Siemens, in Prehispanic Maya Agriculture, P. D. Harrison and B. L. Turner (eds.), (Univ. New Mexico Press, 1978).
W. D. Denevan, Science 169 (1970); A. H. Siemens and D. E. Puleston, Am. Antiq. 37, 228 (1972).
B. L. Turner and P. D. Harrison, Science 213, 403 (1981); see 40.
B. H. Dahlin, Journ. Belizean Affairs 5 (1977).
N. Hammond, personal communication.
S. G. Morley, The Ancient Maya, revised by G. W. Brainard (Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, 1956). Fig. 1.
R. E. W. Adams and P. D. Harrison, in Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns, W. Ashmore (ed.) (Univ. New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, pp. 235–7 and 284 respectively, 1981).
D. E. Puleston and D. W. Callendar, Expedition 9 (1967).
W. A. Haviland, World Archaeol. 16, 190 (1970).
A. Ford, Personal communication.
T. P. Culbert, in The Origins of Maya Civilization, R. E. W. Adams (ed.), (Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1977), p. 33.
B. H. Dahlin and M. E. Chambers, Water Management Facilities at Tikal, Tikal Report #24 (in preparation).
J. M. Longyear, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Publi, 597 (1952). Willey et al., Pap. Peabody Mus. Archaeol. Ethnology Harv. Univ. 54, 525–8 (1965); G. R. Willey and A. E. Smith, Pap. Peabody Mus. Archaeol. Ethnology Harv. Univ. 62, 1, (1969); D. S. Rice, Journ. Field Archaeol. 3 (1976).
H. Moholy-Nagy, Amer. Antiq. 43 (1978).
Elsewhere I tried to explain this paucity of freshwater shell as one resulting from a volcanic eruption that blanketed the region with small angular ejecta that interfered with the respiratory and digestive tracts of molluscan fauna. See B. H. Dahlin., in Maya Archaeology and Ethnohistory, N. Hammond and G. R. Willey (eds.), (Univ. of Texas Press, Austin, 1979).
Linda Schiele, personal communication.
C. C. Coggins, in Maya Archaeology and Ethnohistory, N. Hammond and G. R. Willey (eds.), (Univ. of Texas Press, Austin, 1979).
The research at El Mirador has been funded by the National Science Foundation (#BNS77-25593 and BNS79-24774). The National Geographic Society, The New World Archaeological Foundation, and private donors. I am grateful to these funders as well as to R. E. W. Adams, Joel Gunn, William Folan, Payson D. Sheets, Joseph W. Ball, E. Wyllys Andrews V., Clemency Coggins, and Edward Deevey for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to Andrea Dahlin for her patience and editorial assistance.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dahlin, B.H. Climate and prehistory on the Yucatan peninsula. Climatic Change 5, 245–263 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00140183
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00140183