An Overview and Synthesis of Paleocoastal Research on the Yucatan Peninsula

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Global Submerged Paleolandscapes Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The broad carbonate platform and shallow continental shelf of the Yucatan Peninsula supported the rise of the northern lowland Maya and the dispersal of Paleoamerican peoples thousands of years earlier. Exploration—particularly in the region’s now-submerged cave systems—has revealed the remains of the Yucatan’s earliest human inhabitants as well as diverse and relatively well preserved faunal and botanical assemblages. Additionally, growing interest in Maya maritime trade and interaction has necessitated a more holistic understanding of the interrelationships between humans and coastal processes, particularly in zones of low topographic relief. Over the past two decades, interdisciplinary research programs have more intensively focused on Late Pleistocene through Late Holocene sea-level rise—and its implications—via a range of methodologies and proxies. Efforts have involved the recovery and analysis of cave and shallow marine sediment cores, speleothems, and sub-bottom sonar data in addition to detailed mapping and in situ geological and paleontological sampling. The resulting reconstructions of paleoclimate, paleoecology, and overall paleocoastal geomorphology have proven integral to ongoing archaeological investigations on the Yucatan Peninsula.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advances in Global Submerged Paleolandscapes Research   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32064