that which destroyed Pompeii in 79 c.e.) or even the counter-
part of the vague and fl imsy allusions to the Th íra eruption
discerned in Egyptian texts, the Old Testament, and the writ-
ings of Plato.
In the absence of written records, we have very little evi-
dence for the cultural impact of natural disasters on the in-
digenous peoples of North America for this period. Th e most
signifi cant and widespread environmental change aff ecting
ancient North American culture history was certainly the end
of the last ice age 10,000–12,000 years ago and the subsequent
extinction of many species of large mammals, such as mam-
moths, mastodons, giant sloths, and wild horses. Since these
animals provided food sources for the earliest Native Ameri-
can hunters, their demise forced a shift in lifestyle away from
highly mobile big-game hunting to a less nomadic hunting
and gathering way of life.
What we do have in Mesoamerica is the archaeological
and geological evidence of massive volcanic eruptions that
buried settlements, adversely aff ected agriculture, and oc-
casioned migration and population shift s. While polities in
the immediate vicinity of the disasters collapsed and were
abandoned because of these events, other political centers
may have benefi ted by the infl ux of migrants and a gain in
religious prestige. In Peru climate change and catastrophic
weather events on the coast, related to the phenomenon of
El Niño, may have led to the collapse of ritual centers and
their associated ideology, paving the way for the spread of a
new religious cult originating at Chavín de Huántar in the
highlands.
In the basin of Mexico the eruption of the volcano Xitli
devastated the city of Cuicuilco during the Late Formative to
Early Classic phases of cultural development. Precise dating
of this geological event is still a matter of dispute, but it oc-
curred over about a decade sometime between 400 b.c.e. and
400 c.e., perhaps close to 50 b.c.e. Cuicuilco, situated in what
is now the southern outskirts of Mexico City, was fi rst blan-
keted with ash and then buried under up to 33 feet of lava. Th e
resultant volcanic layer covers a 30-square-mile area and has
made excavation of the site diffi cult, forcing early-20th-cen-
tury diggers to resort to explosives to clear buried structures.
It is possible that because of earlier volcanic episodes, the site
had been wholly or partly abandoned prior to the main erup-
tion. Some scholars speculate that both the displaced popu-
lation and the city’s possible loss of religious prestige in the
face of what would have been interpreted as the wrath of the
gods contributed to the growth and infl uence of the city of
Teotihuacán in the northern part of the basin. Ironically—or
perhaps appropriately—stone sculptures retrieved from be-
neath the lava fl ow indicate that a deity in the form of an old
man, corresponding to the later Aztec fi re god, was among
the chief gods of Cuicuilco.
In present-day El Salvador extensive ashfall from an
eruption of the volcano Ilopango around the turn of the
fourth century c.e. seems to have rendered local agricultural
land unusable and precipitated an exodus from the area. As
in the case of Cuicuilco, a rising city may have benefi ted from
this calamity. In this instance it was the Maya city-state of
Copán, north and east of Ilopango in western Honduras. Ref-
ugees from Ilopango’s eruption, drawn by the rich lands of
the Copán region, may have increased the city’s population,
which in turn contributed to the city’s rising infl uence over
the next several centuries.
In Peru the recurrent phenomenon of El Niño seems to
have massively and negatively aff ected the cultural history at
several junctures in the last three millennia. Named in historic
times for the Christ child because of its appearance around
Christmas, El Niño is a warm-water current that reaches the
coast of Peru every year, usually for only a few weeks. Th e
cause of this eastward-moving current is a decrease in east-
erly trade winds, which leads to the fl ow of warm water from
the western Pacifi c to Peru. Every three to seven years a major
El Niño event occurs in which the warm current aff ects the
Peruvian coast for longer than usual—up to months—creat-
ing havoc with the coastal environment. Cool-water marine
life dies off in the warmer temperatures, and torrential rains
create extensive fl ooding onshore.
Some of t hese events a re of tr u ly catastrophic magnitude.
Some evidence suggests that major events of this kind beset
the coast of Peru around 500 b.c.e., killing the cold-water fi sh
that were a staple of the local economy and destroying des-
ert irrigation systems through fl ooding. Th ese disasters may
have led to the decline of coastal ceremonial centers (though
some archaeologists think they were already in decline owing
to other factors) and with them the prestige of the cults they
supported. Th is change may have left the area receptive to
new religious ideologies emanating from the highland site of
Chavín de Huántar. Th e new beliefs are refl ected in the adop-
tion of highland deity images and other motifs in coastal ce-
ramics and textiles.
Interestingly, an increase in social stratifi cation and
centralized political power may have occurred in the
Chavín area sometime around 400–200 b.c.e. as a conse-
quence not of fl oods but of drought, leading to increased
competition for resources, a situation frequently conducive
to the rise of strong leaders and growing diff erentiation of
social classes.See also agriculture; architecture; astronomy; build-
ing techniques and materials; ceramics and pottery;
cities; climate and geography; economy; empires and
dynasties; foreigners and barbarians; health and dis-
ease; hunting, fishing, and gathering; inventions; lit-
erature; nomadic and pastoral societies; migration
and population movements; money and coinage; pan-
demics and epidemics; religion and cosmology; resis-
tance and dissent; sacred sites; settlement patterns;
slaves and slavery; social collapse and abandonment;
towns and villages; war and conquest.natural disasters: The Americas 783