The Anthropocene Didn't Just Start, Dates from at least 4,000 Years ago

Humans had caused significant landcover change on Earth up to 4000 years earlier than previously thought, University of Queensland researchers have found.

The School of Social Sciences' Dr Andrea Kay said some scientists defined the Anthropocene as starting in the 20th century, but the new research showed human-induced landcover change was globally extensive by 2000BC.

The Anthropocene - the current geological age - is viewed as the period in which human activity has been the dominant influence on Earth's climate and the environment.

"The activities of farmers, pastoralists and hunter-gatherers had significantly changed the planet four milennia ago,'' Dr Kay said.

The ArchaeoGLOBE project used an online survey to gather land-use estimates over the past 10,000 years from archaeologists with regional expertise.

"The modern rate and scale of anthropogenic global change is far greater than those of the deep past, but the long-term cumulative changes that early food producers wrought on Earth are greater than many people realise," Dr Kay said.

"Even small-scale, shifting agriculture can cause significant change when considered at large scales and over long time-periods."

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Note: *NO* part of the globe was exempt.  Not even the Americas.

Evidence of the Importance of Animal Management for the Maya in Ceibal, Guatemala

Earliest isotopic evidence in the Maya region for animal management and long-distance trade at the site of Ceibal, Guatemala 

Authors: 

Sharpe et al 

Abstract: 

This study uses a multiisotope (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and strontium) approach to examine early animal management in the Maya region. An analysis of faunal specimens across almost 2,000 years (1000 BC to AD 950) at the site of Ceibal, Guatemala, reveals the earliest evidence for live-traded dogs and possible captive-reared taxa in the Americas. These animals may have been procured for ceremonial functions based on their location in the monumental site core, suggesting that animal management and trade began in the Maya area to promote special events, activities that were critical in the development of state society. Isotopic evidence for animal captivity at Ceibal reveals that animal management played a greater role in Maya communities than previously believed.

Anatolian Population Initiated its own Agricultural, did not Import From Fertile Crescent?

Small scale agricultural farming was first initiated by indigenous communities living on Turkey's Anatolian plateau, and not introduced by migrant farmers as previously thought, according to new research by the University of Liverpool.

Professor Douglas Baird and his team discovered the presence of carbonised seeds and phytoliths of wheat chaff at Boncuklu, along with agricultural weeds commonly found in early farming sites, suggesting the cultivation of crops did take place.

Additionally, nitrogen isotopes from sheep and goat bone collagen indicate very small scale experimentation with the herding of these animals.

Analysis of stone tools and ancient DNA suggests an indigenous population, rather than migrants from earlier agricultural communities within the Fertile Crescent.

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The PreColumbian Amazon had a Population of at Least One Million

Parts of the Amazon previously thought to have been almost uninhabited were really home to thriving populations of up to a million people, new research shows.

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that there were hundreds of villages in the rainforest away from major rivers, and they were home to different communities speaking varied languages who had an impact on the environment around them.

Huge parts of the Amazon are still unexplored by archaeologists, particularly areas away from major rivers. People had assumed ancient communities had preferred to live near these waterways, but the new evidence shows this was not the case.

The discovery fills a major gap in the history of the Amazon, and provides further evidence that the rainforest -- once thought to be untouched by human farming or occupation -- has in fact been heavily influenced by those who lived in it.

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The Copper Age Iberian Bell Beaker Culture Exported Culture & Technology, not Genes

Prehistoric Iberians 'exported' their culture throughout Europe, reaching Great Britain, Sicily, Poland and all over central Europe in general. However, they did not export their genes. The Beaker culture, which probably originated in Iberia, left remains in those parts of the continent. However, that diffusion was not due to large migrations of populations that took this culture with them. These are the conclusions of an international study in which the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) was involved. Its findings, published in the journal Nature, indicate no evidence of any genetic outflow from Iberia to those areas has been discovered. "Therefore, the diffusion of the Beaker culture from Iberia is the first example of a culture being transmitted as an idea, basically due to a question of social prestige (since it was associated with the virtues of being virile and of being warriors), which is why it is adopted by other populations", indicates researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox, from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, a mixed research centre run by CSIC and the Pompeu Fabra University, in Barcelona, Spain.

Between 4,700 and 4,400 years ago, a new type of bell-shaped beaker pottery was introduced throughout western and central Europe. For more than a century, archaeologists have been trying to determine whether the spread of this beaker pottery - and the (Beaker) culture associated with it - represented a large-scale migration or whether it was due simply to the exchange of new ideas. Now, this new study, which includes DNA data from 400 prehistoric skeletons collected from sites across Europe, resolves the debate of whether the spread was due to migrations or ideas, indicating that both arguments are correct. The findings show that the culture which produced these bell-shaped beakers extended from Iberia to central Europe without a significant movement of populations, although the Beaker culture would spread to other places through migrations at a later date.

The study, whose first author is the Spanish researcher Íñigo Olalde, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, shows that once the (Bell) Beaker culture reaches the centre of Europe (around Germany and its surrounding area), it expands backwards to other places, notably to the British Isles. Yet, in this case, it does represent a migration, replacing around 90% of the population with it. "That is to say, the Neolithic people who built Stonehenge (and who had a greater genetic similarity with Neolithic Iberians than with those from Central Europe) almost disappear and are replaced by the populations from the Beaker culture from the Netherlands and Germany. This replacement is almost absolute in terms of the Y chromosome, which is transmitted by the paternal line, indicating an extreme reproductive bias, and therefore a previously unheard of social dominance. The backward flow also reaches other places such as Italy (at least in the north) and Iberia. I believe it is possible that this is also associated with the expansion of the Celtic or Proto-Celtic languages," Mr. Lalueza-Fox points out.

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The Caribbean Taino Have Modern Descendants

Origins and genetic legacies of the Caribbean Taino

Authors:

Schroeder et al

Abstract:

The Caribbean was one of the last parts of the Americas to be settled by humans, but how and when the islands were first occupied remains a matter of debate. Ancient DNA can help answering these questions, but the work has been hampered by poor DNA preservation. We report the genome sequence of a 1,000-year-old Lucayan Taino individual recovered from the site of Preacher’s Cave in the Bahamas. We sequenced her genome to 12.4-fold coverage and show that she is genetically most closely related to present-day Arawakan speakers from northern South America, suggesting that the ancestors of the Lucayans originated there. Further, we find no evidence for recent inbreeding or isolation in the ancient genome, suggesting that the Lucayans had a relatively large effective population size. Finally, we show that the native American components in some present-day Caribbean genomes are closely related to the ancient Taino, demonstrating an element of continuity between precontact populations and present-day Latino populations in the Caribbean.

John Hawks comments on the Science article about the above.

Reconstructing the Mayan Coastal Settlement at Vista Alegre

Coastal reconstruction of Vista Alegre, an ancient maritime Maya settlement

Authors:

Jaijel et al

Abstract:

Past coastal reconstruction is useful for understanding archaeological coastal settlements and predicting how coastal change might affect modern populations. The ancient Maritime Maya inhabitants of Vista Alegre in the northeastern Yucatan were active seafaring peoples. However, the past coastal landscape environmental history is unknown. Previous research concentrated on the fully terrestrial component of the site, and did not approach the issue from an earth sciences, sedimentological perspective. In this study, a sediment core campaign in the shallow offshore of Vista Alegre aimed to reconstruct the coastal and environmental changes that occurred over the past 3000 years, and specifically identify the changes in sea-level. Nine cores were analyzed using a multi-proxy approach including a range of sedimentological parameters such as granulometry, micropaleontology (foraminifera), radiocarbon dating, and loss on ignition. The sediment cores provided an archive of environmental changes related to sea-level change, anthropogenic influence, and shifting microenvironments which can be associated with cultural time periods. The environmental phases and shifts show some linkage to the archaeological chronology, suggesting an association between the environmental conditions and human activities. Sea-level changes and shifting shorelines have always been, and still are, a challenge for coastal settlements, and ancient sites can be a harbinger of what to anticipate in the future. In addition to this, current natural and anthropogenic pressures on coastlines are placing archaeological sites at increasing risk and thereby threatening this important scientific and cultural archive. Therefore, efforts to identify, characterize, and record natural and anthropogenic pressures prior to destruction are increasingly important.

LIDAR Finds Mayan Megapolis in Guatemalan Jungle

A vast Mayan megalopolis apparently lies hidden underneath all the trees, creepers and centuries of growth and soil in the Guatemalan forest -- and we might never have found it if not for the wonders of laser technology. The PACUNAM Foundation, which champions the use of scientific research to preserve cultural heritage, has scanned the jungles in the country using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology and found an interconnected network of ancient cities. They discovered 60,000 previously unknown structures without having to cut down a single plant, and that discovery changes many things we thought we knew about the ancient civilization.

The sheer size of the megalopolis suggests that Mayan populations were bigger than we thought. Previous estimates put the Mayan people's population at around 5 million, but now it's possible that there were 10 to 15 million of them. The fact that the team discovered houses, pyramids, palaces and elevated highways even though Mayans didn't use wheels or relied of beasts on burden indicates that they had an organized workforce.

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LIDAR Shows Purépecha Empire City Angamuco had as Many Buildings as Manhattan

When researchers surveyed the ruins of a Purépecha Empire city in Mexico the old-fashioned way a decade ago, it took them two seasons to explore two square kilometres. Good thing they decided to use LiDAR, because the city called Angamuco turned out bigger than they previously thought. LiDAR gave the researchers the power to see underneath the lava that covers Angamuco. Thanks to the laser technology, they now know that the city occupied 26 square kilometers of land instead of 13 square kilometers. Colorado State University archaeologist Chris Fisher is presenting that finding and all the latest info on his team's study at the ongoing American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Austin.

"That is a huge area with a lot of people and a lot of architectural foundations that are represented," Fisher told The Guardian. According to their estimates, the city had around 1,500 structures per square kilometer of land. "If you do the maths," he added, "all of a sudden you are talking about 40,000 building foundations up there, which is [about] the same number of building foundations that are on the island of Manhattan." Further, LiDAR also led to the discovery that the city had an unusual layout, with big structures like pyramids and open plazas situated around the edges rather than in the center.

The Purépecha people existed at the same time as the Aztecs. While they are nowhere near as popular as their rivals, they were still a major civilization and had an imperial capital called Tzintzuntzan in western Mexico. Based on the team's LiDAR scans, though, Angamuco is even bigger Tzintzuntzan. It likely wasn't as densely populated, but Fisher said it's now the biggest city in western Mexico during that period that we know of.

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Amazon Rain Forest NOT Pristine: Western Amazon has Over 450 Large Earthworks From 2,000 Years Ago

The Amazonian rainforest was transformed over two thousand years ago by ancient people who built hundreds of large, mysterious earthworks.

Findings by Brazilian and UK experts provide new evidence for how indigenous people lived in the Amazon before European people arrived in the region.

The ditched enclosures, in Acre state in the western Brazilian Amazon, were concealed for centuries by trees. Modern deforestation has allowed the discovery of more than 450 of these large geometrical geoglyphs.

The function of these mysterious sites is still little understood - they are unlikely to be villages, since archaeologists recover very few artefacts during excavation. The layout doesn't suggest they were built for defensive reasons. It is thought they were used only sporadically, perhaps as ritual gathering places.

The structures are ditched enclosures that occupy roughly 13,000 km2. Their discovery challenges assumptions that the rainforest ecosystem has been untouched by humans.

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How the Indus River Valley Civilization Adapting to a Changing Climate

With climate change in our own era becoming increasingly evident, it's natural to wonder how our ancestors may have dealt with similar environmental circumstances. New research methods and technologies are able to shed light on climate patterns that took place thousands of years ago, giving us a new perspective on how cultures of the time coped with variable and changing environments.

A new article in the February issue of Current Anthropology explores the dynamics of adaptation and resilience in the face of a diverse and varied environmental context, using the case study of South Asia's Indus Civilization (c.3000-1300 BC). Integrating research carried out as part of the Land, Water and Settlement project -- part of an ongoing collaboration between the University of Cambridge and Banaras Hindu University -- that worked in northwest India between 2007 and 2014, the article looks at how Indus populations in north-west India interacted with their environment, and considers how that environment changed during periods of climate change.

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Chaco Canyon was Reliant on Food Imports

The ancient inhabitants of New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, the zenith of Pueblo culture in the Southwest a thousand years ago, likely had to import corn to feed the multitudes residing there, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

CU Boulder scientist Larry Benson said the new study shows that Chaco Canyon - believed by some archeologists to have been populated by several thousand people around A.D. 1100 and to have held political sway over an area twice the size of Ohio - had soils that were too salty for the effective growth of corn and beans.

"The important thing about this study is that it demonstrates you can't grow great quantities of corn in the Chaco valley floor," said Benson, an adjunct curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. "And you couldn't grow sufficient corn in the side canyon tributaries of Chaco that would have been necessary to feed several thousand people.

"Either there were very few people living in Chaco Canyon, or corn was imported there."

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A 6th Century Volcanic Eruption Disrupted Mayan Civilization

Explosive eruption of El Chichón volcano (Mexico) disrupted 6th century Maya civilization and contributed to global cooling

Authors:

Nooren et al

Abstract:

A remarkably long period of Northern Hemispheric cooling in the 6th century CE, which disrupted human societies across large parts of the globe, has been attributed to volcanic forcing of climate. A major tropical eruption in 540 CE is thought to have played a key role, but there is no consensus about the source volcano to date. Here, we present evidence for El Chichón in southern Mexico as the most likely candidate, based on a refined reconstruction of the volcano’s eruption history. A new chronological framework, derived from distal tephra deposits and the world’s largest Holocene beach ridge plain along the Gulf of Mexico, enabled us to positively link a major explosive event to a prominent volcanic sulfur spike in bipolar ice core records, dated at 540 CE. We speculate that voluminous tephra fall from the eruption had a severe environmental impact on Maya societies, leading to temporary cultural decline, site abandonment, and migration within the core area of Maya civilization.

Potential Impacts of Precolumbian Disruption of the Amazon Rain Forest

Ancient human disturbances may be skewing our understanding of Amazonian forests

Authors:

McMichael et al

Abstract:

Although the Amazon rainforest houses much of Earth’s biodiversity and plays a major role in the global carbon budget, estimates of tree biodiversity originate from fewer than 1,000 forest inventory plots, and estimates of carbon dynamics are derived from fewer than 200 recensus plots. It is well documented that the pre-European inhabitants of Amazonia actively transformed and modified the forest in many regions before their population collapse around 1491 AD; however, the impacts of these ancient disturbances remain entirely unaccounted for in the many highly influential studies using Amazonian forest plots. Here we examine whether Amazonian forest inventory plot locations are spatially biased toward areas with high probability of ancient human impacts. Our analyses reveal that forest inventory plots, and especially forest recensus plots, in all regions of Amazonia are located disproportionately near archaeological evidence and in areas likely to have ancient human impacts. Furthermore, regions of the Amazon that are relatively oversampled with inventory plots also contain the highest values of predicted ancient human impacts. Given the long lifespan of Amazonian trees, many forest inventory and recensus sites may still be recovering from past disturbances, potentially skewing our interpretations of forest dynamics and our understanding of how these forests are responding to global change. Empirical data on the human history of forest inventory sites are crucial for determining how past disturbances affect modern patterns of forest composition and carbon flux in Amazonian forests.

Divining Cahokia's Rise and Fall

A thousand years ago, huge pyramids and earthen mounds stood where East St. Louis sprawls today in Southern Illinois. This majestic urban architecture towered over the swampy Mississippi River floodplains, blotting out the region's tiny villages. Beginning in the late 900s, word about the city spread throughout the southeast. Thousands of people visited for feasts and rituals, lured by the promise of a new kind of civilization. Many decided to stay.

At the city's apex in 1100, the population exploded to as many as 30 thousand people. It was the largest pre-Columbian city in North America, bigger than London or Paris at the time. Its colorful wooden homes and monuments rose along the eastern side of the Mississippi, eventually spreading across the river to St. Louis. One particularly magnificent structure, known today as Monk’s Mound, marked the center of downtown. It towered 30 meters over an enormous central plaza and had three dramatic ascending levels, each covered in ceremonial buildings. Standing on the highest level, a person speaking loudly could be heard all the way across the Grand Plaza below. Flanking Monk’s Mound to the west was a circle of tall wooden poles, dubbed Woodhenge, that marked the solstices.

Despite its greatness, the city’s name has been lost to time. Its culture is known simply as Mississippian. When Europeans explored Illinois in the 17th century, the city had been abandoned for hundreds of years. At that time, the region was inhabited by the Cahokia, a tribe from the Illinois Confederation. Europeans decided to name the ancient city after them, despite the fact that the Cahokia themselves claimed no connection to it.

Centuries later, Cahokia's meteoric rise and fall remain a mystery. It was booming in 1050, and by 1400 its population had disappeared, leaving behind a landscape completely geoengineered by human hands. Looking for clues about its history, archaeologists dig through the thick, wet, stubborn clay that Cahokians once used to construct their mounds. Buried beneath just a few feet of earth are millennia-old building foundations, trash pits, the cryptic remains of public rituals, and in some places, even, graves.

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The Indus Valley Civilization (Harappan) Started Growing Rice MUCH Earler Than Thought

Approaching rice domestication in South Asia: New evidence from Indus settlements in northern India

Authors:

Bates et al

Abstract:

The nature and timing of rice domestication and the development of rice cultivation in South Asia is much debated. In northern South Asia there is presently a significant gap (c.4200 years) between earliest evidence for the exploitation of wild rice (Lahuradewa c.6000 BCE) and earliest dated evidence for the utilisation of fully domesticated rice (Mahagara c.1800 BCE). The Indus Civilisation (c.3000–1500 BCE) developed and declined during the intervening period, and there has been debate about whether rice was adopted and exploited by Indus populations during this ‘gap’. This paper presents new analysis of spikelet bases and weeds collected from three Indus Civilisation settlements in north-west India, which provide insight into the way that rice was exploited. This analysis suggests that starting in the period before the Indus urban phase (Early Harappan) and continuing through the urban (Mature Harappan/Harappan), post-urban (Late Harappan) and on into the post-Indus Painted Grey Ware (PGW) period, there was a progressive increase in the proportion of domesticated-type spikelet bases and a decrease in wild-types. This pattern fits with a model of the slow development of rice exploitation from wild foraging to agriculture involving full cultivation. Importantly, the accompanying weeds show no increased proportions of wetland species during this period. Instead a mix of wetland and dryland species was identified, and although these data are preliminary, they suggest that the development of an independent rice tradition may have been intertwined with the practices of the eastern most Indus peoples. These data also suggest that when fully domesticated Oryza sativa ssp. japonica was introduced around 2000 BCE, it arrived in an area that was already familiar with domesticated rice cultivation and a range of cultivation techniques.

Pre Modern Japan may not Have Been as Isolated as Thought

Japanese archaeologists said Wednesday they have for the first time unearthed ancient Roman coins at the ruins of an old castle.

The discovery of 10 bronze and copper coins -- the oldest dating from about 300-400 AD -- in southern Okinawa caught researchers by surprise.

It was the first time Roman Empire coins have been discovered in Japan, thousands of kilometres from where they were likely minted.

"At first I thought they were one cent coins dropped by US soldiers," archaeologist Hiroki Miyagi told AFP.

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Ancient Japan may have been far more cosmopolitan than previously thought, archaeologists said Wednesday, pointing to fresh evidence of a Persian official working in the former capital Nara more than 1,000 years ago.

Present-day Iran and Japan were known to have had direct trade links since at least the 7th century, but new testing on a piece of wood -- first discovered in the 1960s -- suggest broader ties, the researchers said.

Infrared imaging revealed previously unreadable characters on the wood -- a standard writing surface in Japan before paper -- that named a Persian official living in the country.

The official worked at an academy where government officials were trained, said Akihiro Watanabe, a researcher at the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

The official may have been teaching mathematics, Watanabe added, pointing to ancient Iran's expertise in the subject.

"Although earlier studies have suggested there were exchanges with Persia as early as the 7th century, this is the first time a person as far away as Persia was known to have worked in Japan (during the period)," he said.

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Water Tunnels Beneath Mayan Temple had Religious Function

Not long before his demise in 683 AD, the ancient ruler Pakal ordered what was one of the Mayan's most ambitious construction projects. The magnificent, nine-level Temple of the Inscriptions went on to house his body for centuries, but it was the intricate stone carvings found in the tomb that have inspired debate about the king's plans for the afterlife. Archaeologists have now unearthed a network of water tunnels beneath Pakal's tomb, which they say not only offers an indication of his intentions to float way to the underworld, but reframes theories about how the grand pyramid itself was built.

The stone slab that topped Pakal's 20-ton sarcophagus was covered with carvings appearing to depict the ruler's resurrection in the afterlife. It has since become an intensely studied example of classic Mayan artwork. In it, Pakal himself appears tilted backwards in front of a tree, surrounded by glyphs and cosmological signs.

This portrayal caught the eye of certain ancient alien theorists, who interpreted the slab to show Pakal at the controls of a spaceship making his way through the Milky Way (a full-size wooden replica even popped up at the International UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico).

But the discovery of the underwater tunnels beneath the Temple of the Inscriptions appears to suggest that Pakal's spirit was sent down the gurgler (taking the far-fetched spaceship theory along with it). The canals were found by researchers from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology, who began digging at the site in 2012 after picking up anomalies under the ground with a geo-radar they feared could cause the pyramid to collapse.

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Climate had a big Impact on the Maya

An extended and higher-resolution record of climate and land use from stalagmite MC01 from Macal Chasm, Belize, revealing connections between major dry events, overall climate variability, and Maya sociopolitical changes

Authors:

Akers et al

Abstract:

The stalagmite MC01 was recovered from Macal Chasm cave on the Vaca Plateau of Belize in 1995, and an initial paleoclimate interpretation was published in 2007. Additional uranium-thorium ages have extended the paleoenvironmental record back from 3250 to 5250 cal yr BP, and the stable isotope (δ18O and δ13C) record is dramatically improved by 660 new values. A series of major dry events (MDEs) evident in stable isotopes, ultraviolet-stimulated luminescence, and petrography began ~ 3100 cal yr BP, and the initiation of these events coincides with an increase in El Niño dominance and southern shift in the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Three MDEs, centered at 1750 cal yr BP (200 CE), 1100 cal yr BP (850 CE), and 850 cal yr BP (1100 CE) and found in other regional climate records, coincide with Maya sociopolitical changes. Residuals from regression of δ13C versus δ18O are interpreted as a proxy for maize cultivation and land clearing, with residual values gradually increasing at the start of Preclassic Period settlement (3950 cal yr BP/2000 BCE), peaking after 2250 cal yr BP (300 BCE) during major Maya development in the Late Preclassic and Classic Periods, and dropping to pre-Preclassic values after regional land abandonment (~ 850 cal yr BP/1100 CE). Regional Maya population growth and cultural expansion may have been aided by abnormally low precipitation variability, as stable isotope variability suggests the Late Preclassic through the Late Classic was the most stable precipitation regime of the past 4000 years. This additional research on MC01 complements other regional paleoenvironmental records that suggest that MDEs coincided with disruptions in Maya society from the Preclassic through the Postclassic Periods. Although it is clear that not all significant sociopolitical changes can be attributed to the MDEs, these events likely played an antagonistic role in social stability.

Mesolithic Humans Did NOT Cause Significant Environmental Changes?!

Environmental records obtained from archaeological sites suggest climate may not have been directly linked to cultural and technological innovations of Middle Stone Age humans in southern Africa, according to a study published July 6, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Patrick Roberts from the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues.

The Middle Stone Age marked a period of dramatic change amongst early humans in southern Africa, and climate change has been postulated as a primary driver for the appearance of technological and cultural innovations such as bone tools, ochre production, and personal ornamentation. While some researchers suggest that climate instability may have directly inspired technological advances, others postulate that environmental stability may have provided a stable setting that allowed for experimentation. However, the disconnection of palaeoenvironmental records from archaeological sites makes it difficult to test these alternatives.

The authors of this study carried out analyses of animal remains, shellfish taxa and the stable carbon and oxygen isotope measurements in ostrich eggshell, from two archaeological sites, Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter, spanning 98,000 to 73,000 years ago and 72,000 to 59,000 years ago, respectively, to acquire data regarding possible palaeoenvironmental conditions in southern Africa at the time. For instance, ostrich eggshell carbon and oxygen stable isotope levels may reflect vegetation and water consumption, which in turn vary with rainfall seasonality and amount in this region.

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