Records of Holocene Biomass Burning, Environmental Change, and Human Occupation in the Southern Maya Lowlands

Summary

Fire was arguably the primary tool used by the Maya to alter the landscape and extract resources. Opening of forest for agriculture, building, and extraction/production of construction material necessitated burning. While we understand the fundamental role of fire in Maya land use, there are very few records of prehispanic biomass burning from the Maya lowlands. Consequently, a limited understanding exists of natural fire regimes and patterns of anthropogenic burning in the tropical seasonally dry forests of Central America. Here we report two new well-dated, high-resolution Holocene records of biomass burning based on fossil charcoal recovered from wetland and lacustrine sediment cores from northern Peten, Guatemala. These macroscopic charcoal data, coupled with previously published environmental proxy data from the cores, are interpreted in the context of regional archeological records. Results show frequent fires occurred in the closed canopy forests of the region prior to occupation by sedentary agriculturalists. Following the arrival of agriculture around 4600 BP, the ecosystem transitioned from climate to anthropogenic control. Low fire frequency in the Early Preclassic period suggests that intensive agricultural strategies may have been employed earlier than previously thought.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Mirador Basin: New Investigations and Conservation Programs

Keywords

Spatial Coverage