Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Climate and prehistory on the Yucatan peninsula

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References and notes

  1. G. R. Willey, A. L. Smith, G. Tourtellot, III, and I. Graham, Pap. Peabody Mus. Aichaeol. Ethnology. Harv. Univ. 13 (1), 20 (1975).

    Google Scholar 

  2. E. Huntington, Civilization and Climate (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 1915); Int. Cong. Amer. 19 (1917).

    Google Scholar 

  3. J. L. Page, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Publi., 431 (1933) and 437 (1938).

  4. R. F. Hatt et al., Cransbrook Inst. Sci. 33 (1953) pp. 3809.

    Google Scholar 

  5. W. A. Sanchez and J. E. Kutzbach, Quarter. Res. 4 (1974).

  6. R. A. Bryson and T. J. Murray, Climates of Hunger (Univ. of Wisc. Press, Madison, 1977).

    Google Scholar 

  7. J. Gunn and R. E. W. Adams. Manuscript.

  8. 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).

    Google Scholar 

  9. G. Denton and W. Karlen, Quarter. Res. 3 (1973).

  10. See Wendland and Bryson in (8)

  11. 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).

  12. E. S. Deevey, D. S. Rice, P. M. Rice, H. H. Vaughan, M. Brenner, M. S. Flannery, Science 206, 302 (1979).

    Google Scholar 

  13. H. H. Vaughan, paper presented at the Soc. Amer. Archaeol. (1978); Ph. D. dissertation (Univ. Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1979).

  14. H. H. Vaughan, personal communication.

  15. 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.

  16. A. Covich, Limnol. and Oceanogr. 21 (1976).

  17. A. Covich and M. Struiver, Limnol. and Oceanogr. 19 (1974).

  18. L. G. Price, M. A. thesis, Wash. Univ., St. Louis (1974).

    Google Scholar 

  19. 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.

  20. W. J. Folan, J. Gunn, J. D. Eaton, and R. W. Patch. Unpublished manuscript.

  21. G. E. Stuart, personal communication.

  22. I. Graham, Mid. Amer. Res. Inst. 33 (1967); R. T. Matheny (ed.), El Mirador, Peten Guatemala (New World Archaeol. Found. Publi. 45, 1980).

  23. Contra P. D. Harrison in Social Process in Maya Prehistory, N. Hammond (ed.), (Academic Press, 1977).

  24. B. H. Dahlin, J. E. Foss, M. E. Chambers (New World Archaeol. Found. Publ. 45, 1980).

  25. J. W. Ball, in The Origins of Maya Civilization, R. E. W. Adams (ed.), (Univ. New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1977).

    Google Scholar 

  26. E. Wyllys Andrews, V., personal communication; (7), 117.

  27. R. E. Smith, Pap. Peabody Mus. Archaeol. Ethnology Harv. Univ. 66 (1971).

  28. F. W. Nelson Jr., Pap. New World Archaeol. Found. 33 (1973).

  29. D. Webster, Cuca, Chacchob and Dzonot Ake (Penn. State Univ. Press, University Park, 1979).

    Google Scholar 

  30. D. W. Forsyth, Ph.D. dissertation (Univ. Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1979).

    Google Scholar 

  31. R. T. Matheny, Science 193 (1976).

  32. R.E.W. Adams, in The Origins of Maya Civilization, R. E. W. Adams (ed.), (Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1977).

    Google Scholar 

  33. J.W. Ball, personal communication.

  34. R. Rands, in The Origins of Maya Civilization, R. E. W. Adams (ed.), (Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1977), pp. 161–176.

    Google Scholar 

  35. 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).

    Google Scholar 

  36. 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).

  37. W. Back, personal communication.

  38. A. S. Pearse, E. P. Greaser, F. G. Hall, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Publ. 457 (1936).

  39. N. Hammond, in Archaeology in Northern Belize, British Mus. Cambridge Univ. Corozal Project, 1974–75 Interim Report (1975).

  40. W. R. Bullard, Pap. Royal Ontario Mus. Art and Archaeol. 9 (1965).

  41. A. H. Siemens, in Prehispanic Maya Agriculture, P. D. Harrison and B. L. Turner (eds.), (Univ. New Mexico Press, 1978).

  42. W. D. Denevan, Science 169 (1970); A. H. Siemens and D. E. Puleston, Am. Antiq. 37, 228 (1972).

    Google Scholar 

  43. B. L. Turner and P. D. Harrison, Science 213, 403 (1981); see 40.

    Google Scholar 

  44. B. H. Dahlin, Journ. Belizean Affairs 5 (1977).

  45. N. Hammond, personal communication.

  46. S. G. Morley, The Ancient Maya, revised by G. W. Brainard (Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, 1956). Fig. 1.

    Google Scholar 

  47. 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).

    Google Scholar 

  48. D. E. Puleston and D. W. Callendar, Expedition 9 (1967).

  49. W. A. Haviland, World Archaeol. 16, 190 (1970).

    Google Scholar 

  50. A. Ford, Personal communication.

  51. T. P. Culbert, in The Origins of Maya Civilization, R. E. W. Adams (ed.), (Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1977), p. 33.

    Google Scholar 

  52. B. H. Dahlin and M. E. Chambers, Water Management Facilities at Tikal, Tikal Report #24 (in preparation).

  53. 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).

  54. H. Moholy-Nagy, Amer. Antiq. 43 (1978).

  55. 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).

  56. Linda Schiele, personal communication.

  57. C. C. Coggins, in Maya Archaeology and Ethnohistory, N. Hammond and G. R. Willey (eds.), (Univ. of Texas Press, Austin, 1979).

    Google Scholar 

  58. 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.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, 80309, Boulder, Colorado, USA

    Bruce H. Dahlin

Authors
  1. Bruce H. Dahlin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints 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

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00140183

Keywords

Search

Navigation