Ancient Maya Reservoirs and Their Role in the Abandonment of Tikal, Guatemala
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Ancient Maya Reservoirs and their Role in the Abandonment of Tikal, Guatemala: A Multi-Proxy Investigation of Solid Sediment Cores. A thesis submitted to the Division of Graduate Studies and Advanced Research of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts In the Department of Anthropology of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences 2013 By Anthony T. Tamberino B.A., University of Cincinnati 2011 A.A.S., Community College of the Air Force 2010 Committee: Dr. Vernon L. Scarborough (Chair) Dr. Kenneth Barnett Tankersley Abstract The Temple-Palace-Hidden Reservoir complex at Tikal, Guatemala provides insights into human adaptation to fluctuations in water resource availability for almost three thousand years. This thesis examines the question of why the ancient Maya city-state of Tikal was abandoned. Two hypotheses associated with Tikal’s reservoir system address possible reasons for abandonment of Tikal. Both hypotheses address a Late Holocene drought, which would have led to insufficient recharge in anthropogenic and natural water features of Tikal. A multi-proxy investigation of solid sediment cores extracted from these features will be used to evaluate the hypotheses. Evidence of a Late Holocene drought at Tikal comes from environmental, paleoclimatic, and paleoenvironmental proxies. A review of the history and geography of the Maya Area is provided to determine, in part, if the reservoirs at Tikal remained undisturbed since the Classic Maya abandonment and a geographic visualization of past monumental architecture within the relevant Temple-Palace-Hidden Reservoir system drainage basin is presented to establish the possible sources of anthropogenic, volcanogenic, and non-volcanic reservoir sediments. Reservoir sediments are dated to using ceramic chronology and AMS radiocarbon dating. An integration of environmental proxies including magnetic susceptibility, sediment sort, Munsell color, and particle size analysis are used to illustrate varying shifts from cold and dry to warm and wet climatic periods. At least one of the cold and dry climatic period, possibly occurring during the Terminal Classic (A.D. 800 – 925) at Tikal, was both AMS radiocarbon dated and relatively dated from reservoir sediments. i ii Acknowledgements First, I would like to say thank you to Dr. Vernon L. Scarborough and Dr. Kenneth Barnett Tankersley for their encouragement, guidance, and for allowing me to take part in their research. Also for providing the necessary equipment and samples to make this investigation possible. Thank you to Dr. Nicholas Dunning for providing the necessary instruction to understand soil genesis and classification from his class and field trips. Thank you to Christopher Carr for his help and for sharing the rectified GIS maps he digitized from the original Carr and Hazard surveys of Tikal. Thank you to the other students that had a hand in laboratory processing of the sub-soil sediment probe cores, specifically Leslie Neal and Andras Nagy for his advice and guidance with any GIS related questions. Thank you to my other fellow undergraduate and graduate students for any other previous work and for eagerly providing support whenever needed. Thank you Dr. Mark Brenner for providing up-to-date articles regarding paleolimnological studies in the Petén region. Thank you to the librarians at the University of Pittsburgh (Hillman) and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (Oakland) for helping me track down the numerous historical, exploration, and excavation reports regarding Tikal. Studies like this are not possible without the recording and sharing of information, thank you to all the other archaeologists and researchers that had a hand in the data utilized to support my arguments. Finally most of all, I would like to thank my loving wife Marcela for her help verifying translations on Spanish texts and for putting up with me and my long hours of obsessive research on this work. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. x Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Abandonment of Tikal, Guatemala and Thesis ........................................................................... 2 Chapter 2: Maya Cultural Background and Study Area ................................................................. 6 Regional Geology. ................................................................................................................... 9 Regional Soils. ....................................................................................................................... 12 Present and Past Regional Climate and Environment. .......................................................... 15 Chapter 3: Recorded History and Geography of the Maya Area .................................................. 20 European Contact and Spanish Conquest.................................................................................. 20 Post-Spanish Conquest. ......................................................................................................... 25 Regional Independence from Spain. ...................................................................................... 25 Republicá de Yucatán and the War of the Castes. ................................................................. 26 Guatemala and El Petén. ........................................................................................................ 28 iv Investigations of the Maya Ruins at Tikal. ............................................................................ 30 History of the Maya at Tikal, Guatemala through Archaeological Investigations .................... 39 Water Catchment System at Tikal. ........................................................................................ 47 Temple Reservoir. ................................................................................................................. 50 Palace Reservoir. ................................................................................................................... 51 Hidden Reservoir. .................................................................................................................. 51 Inscriptions Reservoir. ........................................................................................................... 51 Perdido Reservoir. ................................................................................................................. 52 Corriental Reservoir. ............................................................................................................. 52 Tikal Reservoir. ..................................................................................................................... 53 Geographic Visualization .......................................................................................................... 53 Chapter 4: 2009 and 2010 Field Season Excavations at Tikal, Guatemala .................................. 56 Excavations ............................................................................................................................... 56 Radiocarbon Dates .................................................................................................................... 74 Ceramic Sherd Analysis from Temple and Palace Reservoirs Excavations ............................. 78 Environmentalist’s Sub-Soil Probe ........................................................................................... 82 Sediment Core Locations....................................................................................................... 85 Chapter 5: Laboratory Theory, Methodology, and Results .......................................................... 88 Magnetic Susceptibility ............................................................................................................. 91 Results. ................................................................................................................................ 101 v Munsell color and Sort ............................................................................................................ 101 Results. ................................................................................................................................ 105 Particle Size Analysis .............................................................................................................. 116 Results. ................................................................................................................................ 117 Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 123 Temple Reservoir Main Tank (TR22). ...............................................................................