Characterizing the Spatial and Temporal Variations in Organic Carbon Abundance and Stable Isotope Ratios in Lake Sediments Containing Evidence of Prehistoric Agriculture

Intra-basin spatial variability in lake sediments has the potential to limit the utility of interpretations based on the analysis of a single sediment core. We analyzed a network of five sediment cores to assess geochemical and isotopic spatial variability across a lake in southern Costa Rica. Laguna Zoncho (8.813°N, 82.963°W) provides an excellent opportunity to detect spatial variability because it is a small lake (0.75 ha) with a known history of prehistoric maize agriculture in its watershed. During the agricultural period (1770-570 cal BP) at Zoncho, stable carbon isotope values in the five cores average -23 ‰ V-PDB; these values increase to -27 ‰ V-PDB during the subsequent period of forest recovery. In prior work at the lake, this forest recovery was assumed to have been initiated by the Spanish Conquest about AD 1500, but our new findings suggest it may have occurred earlier and have been driven by a different set of circumstances. We attribute the more positive values during the agricultural period to a greater abundance of C4 vegetation in the watershed as the result of agricultural activity that removed native C3 forest vegetation and created fields and disturbed environments that favor C4 plants. Organic carbon contents during the agricultural period average 5 % and increase to an average of 16 % post-Conquest. Molar C/N ratios range from 13 during the agricultural period to 16 after the cessation of agriculture in the watershed. The cores may indicate a non-simultaneous end to agriculture in the watershed. Stable carbon isotope values and organic carbon contents in three of the four cores collected closer to shore contain evidence of an abrupt end of agriculture around 1000 cal. BP. In these cores, stable carbon isotope values indicate a dramatic shift from C4 to C3 inputs and a rapid increase in organic contents. The fourth core shows this shift around 700 cal. BP. The core recovered from the center of the lake records a gradual end to agriculture in the watershed from 1000 to 700 cal. BP, suggesting that the central core contains reworked material from refocusing of intra-basinal sediments. Spatial variations in organic carbon content and stable carbon isotopic values in a lake as small as Laguna Zoncho highlights the importance of core site selection.