Posted on 04/15/2010 7:24:19 AM PDT by decimon
ATHENS, Ohio (April 15, 2010) A new study led by Ohio University scientists suggests that early Native Americans left a bigger carbon footprint than previously thought, providing more evidence that humans impacted global climate long before the modern industrial era.
Chemical analysis of a stalagmite found in the mountainous Buckeye Creek basin of West Virginia suggests that native people contributed a significant level of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through land use practices. The early Native Americans burned trees to actively manage the forests to yield the nuts and fruit that were a large part of their diets.
They had achieved a pretty sophisticated level of living that I dont think people have fully appreciated, said Gregory Springer, an associate professor of geological sciences at Ohio University and lead author of the study, which was published a recent issue of the journal The Holocene. They were very advanced, and they knew how to get the most out of the forests and landscapes they lived in. This was all across North America, not just a few locations.
(Excerpt) Read more at ohio.edu ...
The article reads like a mom describing her son to the girl that she wants him to date, everything indian is drenched in praise and flattering terms.
The stalactites stick tight to the ceiling.
Easiest way to remember: StalacTites have that second T for on the TOP. StalaGmites have a G for on the GROUND. StalacTites grow down from the top and point down. StalaGmites grow from the ground up and point up.
Unfortunately, your claim does not hold true in WA state because the forests were so thick that no undergrowth was able to grow. You can walk right through a rain forest, it is only in the new growth forests that the nettles, blackberries and other under growth proliferate. The apex trees grow up among the under brush and have a short life span, beginning to die off about every forty years, while the cedars and other conifers take a longer time to form a canopy which closes out the sunshine and kills off the underbrush. It is quite pleasant to walk through an old growth forest, not so for the newer forests. The Indians were burning the forests before the Europeans came in to log.
Thanks gleeaikin.
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