New pollen, sedimentary, and radiocarbon records from the Marquesas Islands, East Polynesia: Implications for archaeological and palaeoclimate studies

Abstract

Three sediment cores, from one upland and two lowland sites on Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands, provide a c. 750-year record of palaeo-environmental change on the island. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of pollen concentrates from the base of each core indicates that the three widely separated marshes developed c. AD 1200 and 1350, after the known period of human colonisation and establishment. Detailed analyses (pollen, sediments, and charcoal) and additional dating of the upland core from Tōvi’i Plateau (810 m) allow for identification of four chronozones. The core sediment data and age-depth curve suggest an alternation of wet-dry-wet conditions over the c. 750-year period. The pollen spectra, in contrast, are fairly stable, with ferns dominating but arborescent species also present. The micro-charcoal evidence points to regional burning and long-distance transport until c. AD 1640, after which localised burning may be indicated. Among the more notable changes is a major increase in pollen and spore deposition after c. AD 1640, a trend most evident in the pollen concentration diagram. Overall, the data suggest rapid sedimentation in the fourteenth century AD, followed by drier and/or more settled conditions until the mid-seventeenth century, and finally wetter conditions after c. AD 1640. The latter in particular is consistent with emerging regional evidence for warm-wet conditions in the central eastern Pacific during the seventeenth century, the height of the Northern Hemisphere ‘Little Ice Age’. The charcoal record also provides insights into human activities on the island, suggesting burning in the lowlands from the fourteenth century AD, probably in conjunction with forest clearance preparatory to tree and root crop cultivation.