***<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dan \u2014 In the Central American area and southern Mexico, there have been hundreds of volcanic eruptions, most of which have not been studied or dated in any detail. There is more data now than when I wrote that paper several years ago, but it is only a small sampling of all the eruptions that have occurred. Some devastating eruptions have been documented in some detail, such as the Ilopango eruption in about 500 AD that devastated the Mayan peoples living around that volcano. But many of the eruptions have not been studied, documented or even recognized. In the wet climate of this area, the ash from a volcano can alter from glassy particles to clay in a couple thousand years and these layers are often not recognized by archaeologists during excavations (although I believe that the more recent workers now pay more attention to them). So, the short answer is: no, I do not know of any particular eruption that can be pinpointed for the BofM story. But I do try to look at the literature on occasion to see if any new dates on eruptions have been documented. \u2013Bart<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a follow-up email, Dr. Kowallis wrote:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I have attached an article that appeared in 2016. The article is not meant to document any particular eruption, but demonstrates the input of ash (now mostly altered to clay) in the Mayan lowlands and the importance of the ash for sustaining agriculture. The authors did obtain one radiocarbon date that falls in the range of Christ\u2019s death (15-110 CE). Even though this is not a date on a particular volcano, it shows that volcanic ash was input into this area around that time. I have also attached Payson Sheets 2012 paper on the effects of volcanism on Central American cultures.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I did not feel it appropriate to pass either of the articles on here. \u00a0In particular, as regards the paper by Payson Sheets, Professor Kowallis sent me a PDF of the entire book in which it\u2019s included (Jago Cooper and Payson Sheets, eds. Surviving Sudden Environmental Change: Answers from Archaeology<\/em> [Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2012]), and I don\u2019t believe that I have the right to share that book openly on a blog. \u00a0But I do offer here the titles of the two specific articles, with their abstracts, for anybody who might be interested in pursuing the subject:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kenneth Barnett Tankersley, Nicholas P. Dunning, Vernon Scarborough, Warren D. Huff,\u00a0David L. Lentz, and Christopher Carr, \u201cCatastrophic volcanism and its implication for agriculture in the\u00a0Maya Lowlands,\u201d\u00a0Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports<\/em> 5 (2016) 465\u2013470.<\/span><\/p>\nPowder X-ray diffraction, high-magnification microscopy, and whole rock X-ray fluorescence spectrometry analyses\u00a0of sediment samples collected from an ancient Maya reservoir at Tikal, Guatemala in 2009 demonstrated\u00a0conclusively that volcanic ash was repeatedly deposited on the site. To test the hypothesis that volcanic ash\u00a0was a major contributor of new parent material to soils in the southern Yucatan Peninsula we used these same\u00a0techniques to analyze samples taken from several natural depressions (bajos<\/em>) in the region. Our findings clearly\u00a0indicate that volcanic ash is a major constituent of regional soils. Hence, explosive volcanism was a critical factor\u00a0in the development and maintenance of ancient Maya urban centers by renewing agricultural soils. These centers\u00a0were typically low-density \u201cgarden cities\u201d largely dependent on their immediate environs for agricultural production. \u00a0For these cities to flourish in a difficult environment a flux of volcanic material occurring within an optimal\u00a0window was critical. Regional wind patterns and rainfall are seasonal, linked to the annual shift in the\u00a0Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). During the wet season, the ITCZ sits over the Yucatan Peninsula with\u00a0Trade Winds and Easterly Waves predominating and blocking ash fall from reaching the Maya Lowlands from\u00a0the volcanic arc to the south. During the dry season, the southward shift of the ITCZ allows westerly and southerly\u00a0winds to bring erupted ash over the region. However, ash fall occurring during the dry season also posed a risk for\u00a0ancient Maya,who were dependent on capturing and storing rainwater to meet their water needs because of the\u00a0problem of reservoir fouling. Intermittent periods of increased aridity amplified drought frequency and severity,\u00a0which likely contributed to periods of disruption in the course of Maya prehistory.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cResponses to Explosive Volcanic Eruptions by Small to\u00a0Complex Societies in Ancient Mexico and Central America\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nPayson Sheets,\u00a0University of Colorado, Boulder<\/span><\/p>\nThe full range of societal complexities, from small egalitarian villages to state level\u00a0civilizations, was impacted by explosive volcanic eruptions in ancient\u00a0Central America and Mexico. Some societies were remarkably resilient and\u00a0recovered from the volcanic disasters within decades. Others were vulnerable\u00a0to sudden massive stresses and failed to recover. This chapter explores the factors\u00a0that contribute to resilience or vulnerability, including societal complexity,\u00a0demography and mobility, connectivity, magnitude of the eruption, social\u00a0conflict, organization of the economy, loss of traditional environmental knowledge\u00a0(TEK), and political organization. Each factor can be scaled regarding its\u00a0contribution to vulnerability. As societies respond to disasters, not everyone\u00a0suffers. There were winners and losers in the ancient past, as there are with contemporary\u00a0disasters. People learn from disasters and modify their vulnerabilities. Therefore the creative aspects of hazard perception are also explored in\u00a0this chapter.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019ve been sharing notes that I\u2019ve largely drawn from an article written by a longtime friend of mine, Dr. Bart Kowallis, who is a\u00a0Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geological Sciences at Brigham Young University, about the natural catastrophe described in the Book of Mormon as having occurred in the New World at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1341,8834,56,8529,8520,1356,1353,8526,8556,1350,1050,8559,1369,8837,8831,1347,3838,8825,8828,3178,8531,8822],"class_list":["post-83279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-3-nephi","tag-bart","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-cataclysm","tag-catastrophe","tag-christ","tag-destruction","tag-devastation","tag-drought","tag-earthquake","tag-geology","tag-helaman","tag-jesus","tag-kowallis","tag-lightning","tag-seismology","tag-storm","tag-tempest","tag-thunder","tag-volcanism","tag-volcano","tag-whirlwind"],"yoast_head":"\n
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