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Late Holocene palaeoecology of Lago Verde: evidence of human impact and climate change in the northern limit of the neotropics during the late formative and classic periods

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Abstract

Multiproxy analysis (pollen, diatom, charcoal) on a 6 m core from Lago Verde (Sierra de Los Tuxtlas), shows evidences of environmental changes and human impact on the evergreen rainforest on the tropical lowlands of eastern Mexico during the last ca. 2,800 years. Prehistoric human occupation is recorded since the late Formative throughout the middle Classic (250 b.c.–ca. a.d. 800) by the presence of maize pollen, a low abundance of tropical arboreal taxa and a high abundance of herbaceous pollen and charcoal particles. This occurred under a scenario of very low lake levels from which dry conditions are inferred based on the dominance of aerophilous and periphytic diatom taxa. After ca. a.d. 800 the site was abandoned and forest regeneration started, at the same time higher lake levels, an indication of more humid conditions, were established. In the absence of human disturbance, tropical forest regeneration was rapid (ca. 200 years). Fluctuations in pollen composition during times of low human population at the site are related to climate variability, with the highest tropical forest diversity and lake levels recorded during the Little Ice Age. Modern human impact is also recorded and compared with the prehistoric deforestation event. Comparison with palaeoecological records from Yucatan and the highlands of central Mexico offers a Mesoamerican perspective of climatic variability giving evidence that the late Formative and early to middle Classic demographic expansion occurred under a scenario of climates dryer than present, with the Postclassic characterized by moister conditions. The end of the Classic (ca. a.d. 800–1000) is identified as a period of rapid climate change which marks one of the most important cultural transitions in Mesoamerica.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Angel Ramirez, Antonio González Rodolfo Robledo, Teodoro Hernández and Gloria Vilaclara for technical support and the staff members of the Limnological Research Center, University of Minnesota, for their assistance with the initial description of cores and TC/TOC analyses. This study was funded by CONACyT grant G28528-T and UNAM-DGAPA grant IN107902.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Paleontología, Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, CP 04510, Mexico, D.F., Mexico

    Socorro Lozano-García & Susana Sosa

  2. Instituto de Geofísica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, CP 04510, Mexico, D.F., Mexico

    Margarita Caballero, Beatriz Ortega & Peter Schaaf

  3. Facultad de Estudios Superiores Iztacala, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Los Reyes Iztacala, CP 54090, Tlalnepantla, Edo. de México, Mexico

    Alejandro Rodríguez

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  1. Socorro Lozano-García
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Correspondence to Socorro Lozano-García.

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Communicated by L. Newsom.

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Lozano-García, S., Caballero, M., Ortega, B. et al. Late Holocene palaeoecology of Lago Verde: evidence of human impact and climate change in the northern limit of the neotropics during the late formative and classic periods. Veget Hist Archaeobot 19, 177–190 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-010-0240-8

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