Interpreting Volcanic Impacts on Raised Field Agroecosystems in the Ecuadorian Highlands: Physical, Geochemical, and Paleoecological Indicators

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Celebrating the Contributions of Volcanologists Minard Hall and Patricia Mothes to Ecuadorian Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The most extensive raised fields systems documented in the Ecuadorian highlands are found in the Inter-Andean Valley north of Cayambe and east of Lago San Pablo. Unfortunately, many of these fields have recently been destroyed by urban development, modern farming, and the expanding Ecuadorian flower industry. The nearby site of Zuleta has a number of well-preserved buried raised fields that offer the chance to study these fields and their associated hydrologic networks, serving as a microscale representation of the more extensive and complicated raised field systems of Cayambe and Lago San Pablo. While volcanic impacts from several eruptions of Cayambe volcano and the massive Quilotoa eruption surely created challenges for the people using these fields, they also provide unique opportunities to understand the timing and nature of the changes that took place. The Quilotoa eruption especially caused severe regional impacts as well as contributed to global climatic changes. This paper outlines the interpretation of volcanic evidence at the site of Zuleta, the associated environmental changes, and some of the posited human responses. Methods used to investigate these volcanic impacts include dynamic image analysis, geochemical weathering indices, isotope stoichiometry, and diatom analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Celebrating the Contributions of Volcanologists Minard Hall and Patricia Mothes to Ecuadorian Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51093