Radiocarbon dating of the last glaciation in Peru

Abstract

In the Cordillera Vilcanota and the vicinity of the Quelccaya ice cap, near lat 14°S in eastern Peru, the last glaciation culminated sometime between about 28,000 and 14,000 B.P. Alpine glaciers were then only about half as long as during an earlier glaciation of unknown date. A rather minor readvance of the Quelccaya ice cap was in progress about 11,500 B.P. and culminated about 11,000 B.P., some 500 to 800 yr before the Younger Dryas Stade in Europe. By 10,000 B.P., the Quelccaya ice cap was little if any larger than it is today, and it was smaller than it is today between about 2700 and 1600 B.P. Glacier fluctuations during the interval 10,000 to 3000 B.P. have not yet been determined. A “Little Ice Age” maximum culminated between 600 and 300 B.P. The relative importance of changes in temperature and precipitation in causing these glacier variations is uncertain.