Description
The authors examined pollen records from a series of sediment cores obtained in the Florida Everglades (~25.22°N, 80.64°W) in an effort to reconstruct a vegetational/hydrologic history of the Everglades ecosystem over the past two thousand years. Results of their study revealed centennial-scale intervals of relatively wet and dry conditions. Of particular interest for our purposes was a period of shallow water with a greater abundance of weedy annuals between the 9th and 13th centuries that suggested "rapid drying or prolonged droughts," which findings, the authors note, are "consistent with a broader regional pattern of warmer, drier conditions during the Medieval Warm Period."