Revisiting the Laguna Tortuguero Paleoenvironmental Record in Puerto Rico: New Data for an Old Record

Summary

This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

I present an interpretation of a 5 m sedimentary sequence from Laguna Tortuguero, Puerto Rico, based on new radiocarbon dates, X-ray diffraction, magnetic susceptibility, and carbon isotope data. I also highlight the merits of revisiting old but significant paleoenvironmental records to understand past human-environment interactions amidst shifting paradigms in archaeology by broadening the scope of proxies used. As part of my dissertation—which looks at human-environment interactions in Puerto Rico’s north-central region through a historical ecology lens—my team and I replicated a previously published paleoenvironmental study (Burney et al. 1994). Burney’s study of Tortuguero remains one of the most influential paleoenvironmental records in the literature of the region, especially in Puerto Rican archaeology where chronologies are currently under revision. Burney’s original core provided a ~7,000-year-old microcharcoal sequence that spiked ca. 5300 cal BP and thus interpreted as a proxy for anthropogenic forest fires that signaled initial human colonization of the island. Their proposal pushed back the timing of human arrival to Puerto Rico by ~2,000 years and, although unsupported by the archaeological record at the time, new investigations of Archaic sites now situate the period of human colonization of the island much closer to Burney’s estimated timing.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36885.0