With support from the National Science Foundation Dr. Molly Morgan will coordinate the analysis of a geological core collected from the Sesecapa Lagoon in Pacific coastal Guatemala. Using radiocarbon dating, floral, faunal and geological and chemical analysis Dr. Morgan will develop a detailed and chronologically sensitive reconstruction of climate change and environmental transformation for this portion of the Pacific coast. Because human habitation of this coastal region extends over multiple millennia it provides a comparative record which will allow researchers to examine the multi-directional interactions between environmental change and societal response. It is expected that the core will document ca. 6,000 years and thus cover the entire occupation span. Archaeologically the region documents athe shift from residential mobility and low-level food production to permanent sedentism and sociocultural complexity and the rise of complex society.
Recent paleoclimatic research recognizes that this period following the last "Ice Age" experienced shifts in climate that must have affected human populations, but understanding of local mechanisms are often lacking and detailed associated culture change remain obscure. On the Pacific coast of Middle America, as well as tropic coasts in many other regions of the world, these changes included the formation of lagoons and beach formation and progradation. These would be documented in the core. In addition to the new light which will be shed on regional archaeology the project has multiple broader impacts. The research will document a major type of landscape transition - the closing off of saltwater estuaries and the subsequent formation of freshwater lagoons - a currently ongoing process on the Pacific coast. The work will provide a detailed understanding of beach accumulation rates and landscape effects. Communities living in this wetland area today can use this information to plan for changes that they will face as rivers continue to dump sediments along the coast and estuary environments transform. Secondly the results may be more broadly generalized.
