DROUGHT AND THE MAYA COLLAPSE
DROUGHT AND THE MAYA COLLAPSE
复制标题
干旱和玛雅人的崩溃
作者：
R. Gill;P. Mayewski;J. Nyberg;G. Haug;L. Peterson
公元760年至930年间，数百万玛雅人从地球上消失。我们研究了玛雅人生活的自然环境的变化。来自格陵兰的冰芯证据表明，在玛雅崩溃前后，太阳辐射量和太阳活动出现了最低值，伴随着格陵兰的严寒和干燥，表明半球气候条件有利于玛雅低地的干旱。在加勒比东北部，海面盐度降低。过去7,000年来最严重的干旱摧毁了尤卡坦半岛。大约在公元760年、810年、860年和910年，玛雅的大城市分四个阶段被废弃，每隔50年就倒塌一次。从金塔纳罗奥的奇钱卡纳布湖采集的一个新的核心显示，在150到200年的干旱中，有三次严重的干旱。来自委内瑞拉Cariaco盆地的海洋岩心精确地确定了四次严重干旱事件的时间，分别为760、810、860和910年，与城市废弃的四个阶段相吻合。Cariaco盆地的长期干旱似乎从760年持续到930年。气候变化是玛雅人在之前1,500年中所面临的最剧烈的变化，也是之前7,000年中最严重的变化。
Abstract Between a.d. 760 and 930, millions of Maya disappeared from the Earth. We examine changes in the physical environment in which the Maya lived. The ice-core evidence from Greenland indicates that around the time of the Maya Collapse, a minimum in solar insolation and a low in solar activity occurred, accompanied by severe cold and dryness over Greenland, indicating hemispheric climatic conditions propitious for drought in the Maya Lowlands. In the northeastern Caribbean, sea-surface salinity (SSS) was lowered. The most severe drought of the past 7,000 years devastated the Yucatan Peninsula. Large Maya cities collapsed in four phases of abandonment spaced about fifty years apart around a.d. 760, 810, 860, and 910. A new core taken from Lake Chichancanab in Quintana Roo shows three peak episodes of brutal drought within a 150- to 200-year drought. A marine core from the Cariaco Basin off Venezuela precisely dates four severe drought episodes to 760, 810, 860, and 910, coincident with the four phases of abandonment of cities. The long-term drought appears to have lasted from 760 to 930 in the Cariaco Basin. The climatic changes were the most drastic the Maya had faced in the preceding 1,500 years and the most severe of the preceding 7,000 years.