Large variation in availability of Maya food plant sources during ancient droughts
| Autor: | Scott L. Fedick, Louis S. Santiago |
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| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
History
Social Sciences drought Ancient ethnobotany Edible Indians parasitic diseases Humans History Ancient Nutrition Multidisciplinary Central American fungi food and beverages Agriculture Plants Biological Sciences sustainability Indians Central American Diet Droughts Maya Anthropology Plants Edible |
| Zdroj: | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol 119, iss 1 |
| ISSN: | 1091-6490 |
| Popis: | Significance The disruption of Classic Maya society coincided with extended droughts, as suggested by numerous paleoclimatic studies. However, the role of drought in civil upheaval and demographic decline is complicated by the difficulty of linking relatively coarse estimates of meteorological drought with fine-scale plant processes that underpin agriculture. Our analysis of drought resistance across the historically documented, indigenous food plants of ethnographic Maya groups shows a broad range of foods gradually dwindling through droughts of increasing severity. This finding implies that short to moderate droughts could have caused agricultural disruption but not subsistence collapse. However, multiyear extreme drought is consistent with agricultural collapse and the specter of starvation, unless mitigated by food storage or trade from areas less affected by drought. Paleoclimatic evidence indicating a series of droughts in the Yucatan Peninsula during the Terminal Classic period suggests that climate change may have contributed to the disruption or collapse of Classic Maya polities. Although climate change cannot fully account for the multifaceted, political turmoil of the period, it is clear that droughts of strong magnitude could have limited food availability, potentially causing famine, migration, and societal decline. Maize was undoubtedly an important staple food of the ancient Maya, but a complete analysis of other food resources that would have been available during drought remains unresolved. Here, we assess drought resistance of all 497 indigenous food plant species documented in ethnographic, ethnobotanical, and botanical studies as having been used by the lowland Maya and classify the availability of these plant species and their edible components under various drought scenarios. Our analysis indicates availability of 83% of food plant species in short-term drought, but this percentage drops to 22% of food plant species available in moderate drought up to 1 y. During extreme drought, lasting several years, our analysis indicates availability of 11% of food plant species. Our results demonstrate a greater diversity of food sources beyond maize that would have been available to the Maya during climate disruption of the Terminal Classic period than has been previously acknowledged. While drought would have necessitated shifts in dietary patterns, the range of physiological drought responses for the available food plants would have allowed a continuing food supply under all but the most dire conditions. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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