Landscape Change at the Ceremonial Center of Tibes in Puerto Rico: A Late Holocene Hurricane Flood Event?

Summary

This paper presents the results of a geoarchaeological study of the depositional history at the Ceremonial Center of Tibes in Puerto Rico. Geoarchaeological study of the sediment and soil relationship at Tibes reveals evidence of Holocene paleoflooding that occurred between AD 800 and AD 900. This flood event caused significant changes to the cultural landscape at Tibes. These site formation processes include river migration farther west and south of the paleochannel, deposition of reworked fluvial fine-grained sediments, cobbly gravel deposits, and cultural material across the western portions of the site; and destruction of older cultural deposits and ceremonial features. The results of this study offer a comparative analysis of flood events recorded at other archaeological sites in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Recent Research at the Ceremonial Center of Tibes, Ponce, Puerto Rico

Keywords

Spatial Coverage