Stalagmite reveals carbon footprint of early Native Americans

Ohio University ^ | Apr 15, 2010 | Unknown

[ansel12]

Stone Age people who used forest fires as their principal agricultural method are being touted as "pretty sophisticated".

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.

[ApplegateRanch]

Stalactites (have a “c”) grow down from the ceiling

The stalactites stick tight to the ceiling.

[TrueKnightGalahad]

Ok, are Stalagmites the ones that point up or down? I can never get that one straight.

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.

[gleeaikin]

Actually the Indians fires were not to burn down the trees, but to clear out the understory of brush and debris. Our own park service is now engaging in "controlled burns"; when fire danger conditions are at the lowest level, so we do not end up with the huge conflagrations we had in some of our parks a few decades ago from a 100 year buildup of debris. When Europeans first settled areas like Kentucky, and Tennessee, they discovered large open prairies called "barrens" which the Indians had produced by burning. These areas supported large herds of Eastern Buffalo which the Indians hunted. The were also called Buffalo Commons as the Indians who might otherwise be hostile, usually observed a truce while they hunted these areas.

[Eva]

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.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks gleeaikin.