Two Thousand Years of Land-Use and Vegetation Evolution in the Andean Highlands of Northern Chile Inferred from Pollen and Charcoal Analyses

Quaternary

Capriles, JoséM.¹  Domic, AlejandraI.²  Escobar-Torrez, Katerine³  Santoro, CalogeroM.⁴  Maldonado, Antonio⁵ 

[1] Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Áridas, Raul Bitran No. 1305, La Serena 1700000, Chile;Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA;Herbario Nacional de Bolivia, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, Cota Calle 27, La Paz 15000, Bolivia;Instituto de Alta Investigación, Universidad de Tarapacá, Antofagasta 1520, Arica 100000, Chile;Instituto de Investigación Multidisciplinario en Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad de La Serena, La Serena 1700000, Chile

关键词: Holocene;    human impact;    environmental change;    socio-ecological systems;    camelid pastoralism;    microcharcoal;   

DOI  :  10.3390/quat1030032

学科分类：地质学

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The European conquest of the New World produced major socio-environmental reorganization in the Americas, but for many specific regions and ecosystems, we still do not understand how these changes occurred within a broader temporal framework. In this paper, we reconstruct the long-term environmental and vegetation changes experienced by high-altitude wetlands of the southcentral Andes over the last two millennia. Pollen and charcoal analyses of a 5.5-m-long core recovered from the semi-arid puna of northern Chile indicate that while climatic drivers influenced vegetation turnaround, human land use and management strategies significantly affected long-term changes. Our results indicate that the puna vegetation mostly dominated by grasslands and some peatland taxa stabilized during the late Holocene, xerophytic shrubs expanded during extremely dry events, and peatland vegetation persisted in relation to landscape-scale management strategies by Andean pastoralist societies. Environmental changes produced during the post-conquest period included the introduction of exotic taxa, such as clovers, associated with the translocation of exotic herding animals (sheep, cattle, and donkeys) and a deterioration in the management of highland wetlands.

【 授权许可】

CC BY