Contextualizing Post-human Arrival Vegetation Shifts with 61,000 Years of Climate-Driven Change in Central Florida

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This study uses pollen, fungal spores, charcoal, and human demographic models to investigate vegetation change from an iconic 61,000 year record at Lake Tulane, Florida. The pollen record shows oscillations between pine and oak-dominated vegetation, with Heinrich events aligning with peaks in pine, indicating warm, wet climates in central Florida during these times in contrast to the North Atlantic. Our analysis applies new quantitative methods, including topic modeling and state-space models, to assess the impact of climate, fire, and megafaunal extinctions before and after human arrival. We find millennial-scale climate variations, particularly CO2 levels and Heinrich events, to be the strongest predictors of vegetation shifts, while fire disturbances facilitated ecosystem transformations. Pine woodlands flourished during Heinrich events, while diverse oak-forb woodlands dominated during low CO2 periods and high megafaunal abundance. The disappearance of oak-forb woodlands between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago coincides with megafaunal extinctions, rising CO2, and the arrival of humans. However, the evidence suggests that human land use at the end of the Pleistocene had limited impact on widespread vegetation change in Florida. These findings emphasize the complex interplay between natural forces and human presence in shaping ecosystems over time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53820