A palynological perspective on the impacts of European contact: Historic deforestation, ranching and agriculture surrounding the Cuchumatanes Highlands, Guatemala

Vegetation History and Archaeobotany https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-020-00790-2 ORIGINAL ARTICLE A palynological perspective on the impacts of European contact: Historic deforestation, ranching and agriculture surrounding the Cuchumatanes Highlands, Guatemala William J. Harvey1,2 · Sandra Nogué3 · Nathan Stansell4 · Carole Adolf1 · Peter R. Long1 · Kathy Willis1 Received: 15 November 2019 / Accepted: 16 June 2020 © The Author(s) 2020 Abstract The Spanish conquest of the Cuchumatanes Highlands (1524–1541 ce) led to dramatic land use changes adhering to colonial practices and values, which included the rearing of livestock, agriculture, timber extraction, mining, and the relocation of indigenous populations to new settlements. These changes are often recorded in historical accounts and official records; however, these are sparse, incomplete, and have been lost over the passage of time. Here, we present a high-resolution palaeoenvironmental reconstruction for Cenote Kail (Guatemala) since the Spanish Conquest, to provide additional evidence of land use changes from an integrated multi-proxy perspective. We analysed: (i) fossil pollen; (ii) macroscopic and microscopic charcoal; and (iii) dung fungal spores (Sporormiella) from a lake sediment core extracted from Cenote Kail in the Cuchumatanes highlands, combining these analyses with remotely sensed satellite data. We reconstructed: (i) forest composition and dynamics; (ii) burning, (iii) fauna abundance, and (iv) agricultural activities. High resolution age-depth modelling was conducted using a combination of 210Pb and 14C dates. The high temporal resolution enabled a novel integrated validation of the charcoal data sets with remotely sensed satellite data and the historical record. Three stages of floral compositional change were discerned from the palynological assemblage data encompassing: (i) the decline of mixed hard wood forests (MHWF), associated with the building of new settlements, agriculture and timber extraction for fuel (1550–1675 ce); (ii) pastoral expansions involving the rearing of livestock (1700–1800 ce); and (iii) the expansions of urban settlements and increasing management of the land (1821–2015 ce). Seed predation is suggested as the dominant factor preventing MHWF from re-establishing in the Cuchumatanes Highlands over the past 500 years. Burning is limited locally and regionally and in line with the modern regime, which suggests that fire has been managed and controlled since European contact. Keywords Palaeoecology · Fire · Anthropogenic impact · Mountain tropical forests · Mountain hard wood forests · Spanish conquest · Pollen · Charcoal · Sporormiella Introduction Communicated by W. Gosling. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-020-00790-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * William J. Harvey 1 Long‑Term Ecology Laboratory, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Zoology Research and Administration Building, 11a Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3SZ, UK 2 Geography, Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK After European contact and the Spanish conquest of the territory representing modern Guatemala (1524–1541 ce) the anthropogenic use of land was drastically altered to facilitate the rearing of livestock, agriculture, large scale timber 3 School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, Highfield Road, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK 4 Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, Northern Illinois University, De Kalb, IL 60115‑2854, USA 13 Vol.:(0123456789) Vegetation History and Archaeobotany extraction, mining and new settlements. These were heterogenous across the uplands and lowlands varying in extent, duration and intensity (Thompson 1958). These practices initially attained to Spanish colonial aspirations following three important ideologies: (i) the church; (ii) the state; and (iii) the ambition of individuals to attain and generate wealth (Lovell 1985). The Cuchumatanes highlands (Fig. 1; ESM 1 Table 1) were subject to drastic land use changes under colonial rule documented in various historical accounts (e.g. Ingersoll 1826; Thompson 1958) and official records (e.g. Cortez y Larraz 1958). In the absence of chronicled accounts or direct measures of land use change, palaeoenvironmental reconstructions can be used to infer impacts and the mechanistic responses of anthropogenic practices across space and through time (e.g. Dull 2004a, b, 2007; Velez et al. 2011). In this study we apply a multi-proxy approach to independently reconstruct the land use history of the area surrounding the Cuchumatanes highlands after European contact, with the aim of identifying how and when anthropogenic practices involving different types of land use change impacted vegetation composition during the past 500 years, and to independently validate the catchment area for burning represented by macroscopic and microscopic charcoal using satellite earth observation data. Integration of remotely sensed satellite data with palaeoecological records is often challenging and rarely attempted Fig. 1  Regional Map of the Maya area depicting: (i) Columbian palaeo-climatic and palynological records; (ii) the current departments for the Cuchumatanes Highlands; and (iii) colonial ecclesiastical administrative areas and churches: (I) San Andres Cuilco; (II) San Marcos; (III) San Pedro Soloma; (IV) Chiantla; (V) Huehuetenango; (VI) Santa Ana Malacatan; (VII) Santa Maria Nebaj; (VIII) San Miguel Uspantan; and (IX) Totonicapan (Lovell 1985). Ecclesiastical administrative areas are depicted and linked to the local parishes through the connected dots 13 due to the resolution of palaeolimnological records and their associated age-depth uncertainties (Metcalfe et al. 2015). Lakes with high sedimentation rates may be precisely dated using 210Pb measurements to give approximately annually resolved sedimentary sequences going back up to 200 years (Oldfield and Appleby 1984). Precision dating of lake sediments allows for palaeoecological data and satellite data to be directly compared enabling contemporary validation of the palaeoecological proxy data (e.g. charcoal representing burning) for as long as the satellite instrument has been active (e.g. MODIS since 2000 ce). We present the first subdecadal dated palaeolimnological record from this region enabling a high-resolution integrated reconstruction of landuse history since the Spanish Conquest (1524 ce). Climate In the uplands of Guatemala, climate (precipitation and temperature) is highly variable and is primarily determined by the altitude rather than latitude (Ingersoll 1826). Mean annual temperatures range between 14 and 25 °C, while average rainfall across the region lies between 900 and 3,700 mm depending on the elevation (Kappelle 2006). The region is defined (...truncated)