A 2200 year view of human adaptation to climate change at the Lake of the Condors in the Peruvian Andes
Abstract
An active discussion within archaeology is the extent to which climate induced cultural changes in pre-Incan societies or whether cultural adaptations came about through internal forces. Lake Condores, Peru, is an iconic archaeological setting, where over 200 pre-Incan and Incan period mummies were discovered interred in the cliffs overlooking the lake. The occupational history of this setting and how human inhabitants adapted their lifestyle to climate change is unknown. A lake sediment core that spans the last 2200 years has provided detailed multiproxy data (fossil pollen, diatoms, charcoal, and sediment chemistry) that shed new light on the sensitivity of Andean communities to climate change. We find a behavioral transition from mobile responses to a sedentary lifestyle took place between AD 800 and 1100. A permanent village was established at the time that mummies began to be interred in the cliffs, about AD 1300. The establishment of the valley as a sacred site coincides with increased precipitation, which may have made agriculture in the valley impractical, resulting in local agricultural abandonment and a return of forest. In a humanized landscape, a choice was made to allow forest to regrow within the valley, while sunnier slopes outside the valley probably became centers of agricultural activity. The effect of the forest succession was to dampen climate signals in the record and to return the lake to an oligotrophic status. Understanding the human history of this setting is essential to its correct paleoclimatic interpretation and in modern conservationists seeing a mature Andean forest as part of a manufactured landscape.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMGC11L1027B
- Keywords:
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- 1616 Climate variability;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1637 Regional climate change;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1699 General or miscellaneous;
- GLOBAL CHANGE