Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223;
Department of Marine and Coastal Environmental Science, Texas A&M University, Galveston, TX 77554.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Mar 9;118(10). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2015764118.
The first Caribbean settlers were Amerindians from South America. Great Abaco and Grand Bahama, the final islands colonized in the northernmost Bahamas, were inhabited by the Lucayans when Europeans arrived. The timing of Lucayan arrival in the northern Bahamas has been uncertain because direct archaeological evidence is limited. We document Lucayan arrival on Great Abaco Island through a detailed record of vegetation, fire, and landscape dynamics based on proxy data from Blackwood Sinkhole. From about 3,000 to 1,000 y ago, forests dominated by hardwoods and palms were resilient to the effects of hurricanes and cooling sea surface temperatures. The arrival of Lucayans by about 830 CE (2σ range: 720 to 920 CE) is demarcated by increased burning and followed by landscape disturbance and a time-transgressive shift from hardwoods and palms to the modern pine forest. Considering that Lucayan settlements in the southern Bahamian archipelago are dated to about 750 CE (2σ range: 600 to 900 CE), these results demonstrate that Lucayans spread rapidly through the archipelago in less than 100 y. Although precontact landscapes would have been influenced by storms and climatic trends, the most pronounced changes follow more directly from landscape burning and ecosystem shifts after Lucayan arrival. The pine forests of Abaco declined substantially between 1500 and 1670 CE, a period of increased regional hurricane activity, coupled with fires on an already human-impacted landscape. Any future intensification of hurricane activity in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean threatens the sustainability of modern pine forests in the northern Bahamas.
第一批加勒比海定居者是来自南美洲的美洲原住民。当欧洲人到达时，大阿巴科岛和大巴哈马岛是巴哈马最北部最后被殖民的岛屿，那里居住着卢卡扬人。由于直接的考古证据有限，卢卡扬人到达巴哈马北部的时间一直不确定。我们通过黑木水坑的代理数据记录植被、火灾和景观动态，为大阿巴科岛的卢卡扬人到达提供了详细的记录。大约在 3000 到 1000 年前，以硬木和棕榈树为主的森林能够抵御飓风和海水降温的影响。大约在公元 830 年（2σ 范围：720 至 920 年）卢卡扬人的到来标志着燃烧活动的增加，随后是景观干扰和从硬木和棕榈树到现代松林的时间推移性转变。考虑到巴哈马群岛南部的卢卡扬人定居点的年代可以追溯到公元 750 年左右（2σ 范围：600 至 900 年），这些结果表明卢卡扬人在不到 100 年的时间里迅速传遍了群岛。尽管接触前的景观可能受到风暴和气候趋势的影响，但最显著的变化更直接地来自卢卡扬人到达后的景观燃烧和生态系统变化。1500 年至 1670 年间，阿巴科的松树森林大幅减少，这一时期的区域性飓风活动增加，加上已经受到人类影响的景观上的火灾。未来热带北大西洋飓风活动的任何加剧都威胁着巴哈马北部现代松林的可持续性。
