Volume 8, Number 4—April 2002
Historical Review
Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico
Figure 3

Figure 3. The winter-spring precipitation totals estimated for each year in Durango, 1540–1548 (top), 1571–1579 (middle). Compared with the Palmer drought index, southwestern USA 1988–1995 (bottom). A tenfold increase in deer mice was witnessed in the southwestern USA during the 1993 outbreak, a year of abundant precipitation following a prolonged drought. The similar dry-wet pattern reconstructed for the 1545 epidemic of cocoliztli may have impacted the population dynamics of the suspected rodent host to aggravate the epidemic.