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Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands

Hodell, David A., Brenner, Mark, Curtis, Jason H., Guilderson, Thomas·2001·Science

Abstract

We analyzed lake-sediment cores from the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, to reconstruct the climate history of the region over the past 2600 years. Time series analysis of sediment proxies, which are sensitive to the changing ratio of evaporation to precipitation (oxygen isotopes and gypsum precipitation), reveal a recurrent pattern of drought with a dominant periodicity of 208 years. This cycle is similar to the documented 206-year period in records of cosmogenic nuclide production (carbon-14 and beryllium-10) that is thought to reflect variations in solar activity. We conclude that a significant component of century-scale variability in Yucatan droughts is explained by solar forcing. Furthermore, some of the maxima in the 208-year drought cycle correspond with discontinuities in Maya cultural evolution, suggesting that the Maya were affected by these bicentennial oscillations in precipitation.

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Metadata

Authors
Hodell, D. A., Brenner, M., Curtis, J. H., & Guilderson, T.
Venue
Science
Published
2001-05-18
Volume
292
Issue
5520
Pages
1367-1370
ISSN
  • 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
  • 1095-9203
OpenAlex
W2132652012
Cited by
568
References
0
FWCI
16.91
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1126/science.1057759
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Hodell, D. A., Brenner, M., Curtis, J. H., & Guilderson, T. (2001). Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1057759

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