Late Holocene environmental history in the northeastern Caribbean: Multi-proxy evidence from two small lakes on the southern slope of the Cordillera Central, Dominican Republic.
详细信息
- 作者：Lane ; Chad Steven.
- 学历：Doctor
- 年：2007
- 导师：Horn, Sally P.
- 毕业院校：The University of Tennessee
- 专业：Anthropology, Physical.;Geography.;Geology.;Environmental Sciences.
- ISBN：9780549296621
- CBH：3286735
- Country：USA
- 语种：English
- FileSize：13270474
- Pages：246
文摘
This dissertation presents multi-proxy evidence of paleoenvironmental change preserved in sediment records recovered from two lakes on the southern (Caribbean) slope of the Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic: Laguna Castilla (18°47'51" N, 70°52'33" W, 976 m) and Laguna de Salvador (18°47'45" N, 70°53'13" W, 990 m).;The Castilla and Salvador sediment records contain evidence of prehistoric forest clearance and agriculture, including abundant maize pollen, dating back to around A.D. 1060. These pollen grains constitute the earliest evidence of maize agriculture from the interior of Hispaniola, and represent some of the earliest evidence of maize agriculture from the Caribbean as a whole. This finding is significant geographically because it suggests that prehistoric humans that occupied the interior of the island may have relied more on maize than their coastal counterparts.;The abundance of maize pollen in the sediment records, and the high rates of sediment accumulation in the lakes, provide an ideal situation for testing the sensitivity of stable carbon isotope signatures of total organic carbon (delta13CTOC) in lake sediments to variations in the spatial scale or intensity of agricultural activities. Close correspondence between delta13CTOC values and maize pollen concentrations in the Castilla sediment record indicates a close relationship between delta13CTOC signatures and the scale of maize cultivation. Correlations between delta13CTOC signatures and mineral influx also highlight the sensitivity of the 613CTocrecord to variations in allochthonous carbon delivery.