CAMBIOS PALEOCLIMÁTICOS Y SU INFLUENCIA SOBRE EL DESARROLLO CULTURAL EN EL SUR DEL ÁREA CENTRAL ANDINA

Abstract

Until recently, the environmental history of the entire Central Andes was thought to be uniform. New insights about cultural dynamics show a recurrent pattern of boom and decline, coincident to regional changes in environmental favorability, which was out-of-phase. Remote palaeoclimatic proxy data from the tropics show
that these changes were triggered by ENSO variability. El Niño-like conditions and an enhanced South American Summer Monsoon (SASM) led to moisture transport to the Titicaca region, whereas La Niña-like conditions and a weak SASM were the prerequisites for drought around lake Titicaca and enhanced
rainfall in the Palpa-Laramate region further north, supporting its lowland oases. This seesaw occurred several times since the Mid-Holocene, pointing to a general underlying mechanism of regional impacts of the superimposed ENSO system.