Pollen and tree survey map. Credit: Marc Abrams, Penn State
Posted on 05/31/2019 11:02:30 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Native Americans' use of fire to manage vegetation in what is now the Eastern United States was more profound than previously believed, according to a Penn State researcher who determined that forest composition change in the region was caused more by land use than climate change...
Over the last 2,000 years at least, according to Abrams -- who for three decades has been studying past and present qualities of eastern U.S. forests -- frequent and widespread human-caused fire resulted in the predominance of fire-adapted tree species. And in the time since burning has been curtailed, forests are changing, with species such as oak, hickory and pine losing ground...
The researchers found that in the northernmost forests, present-day pollen and tree-survey data revealed significant declines in beech, pine, hemlock and larches, and increases in maple, poplar, ash, oak and fir. In forests to the south, both witness tree and pollen records pointed to historic oak and pine domination, with declines in oak and chestnut and increases in maple and birch, based on present-day data...
Researchers also included human population data for the region, going back 2,000 years, to bolster their findings, which recently were published in the Annals of Forest Science. After hundreds of years of fairly stable levels of fire caused by relatively low numbers of Native Americans in the region, they report, the most significant escalation in burning followed the dramatic increase in human population associated with European settlement prior to the early 20th century. Moreover, it appears that low numbers of Native Americans were capable of burning large areas of the eastern U.S. and did so repeatedly.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
In before the boilerplate trolling starts.
You can bet they waited for days when the wind was owing towards that pesky tribe living next door.
The liberal view is that the noble native peoples lived in peace and harmony with nature. What will this news do to the liberals view of things?
I don’t troll boilerplates.
I’m not even sure I’ve ever even seen one. They sound heavy.
To an uneducated type like me, what’s reported in that article sounds like sense making.
Humans are rather known for managing the area around themselves to suit their needs. We see it in Central and South America with the slash burning to clear land for crops, and iirc, it used to be a practice in Australia by the Aborigines to keep the ecosystem healthy.
And, we see the attempt at it with our modern leftists, but as usual, everything they touch, they turn to s**t.
The idea of the peacenik indian in tune with nature is a bunch of hogwash. The Americas would be vastly different if it was actually uninhabited by the time of European colonization.
The usual: ignore the contrary message, change the subject, and destroy the career of the messenger, as a warning to others who challenge the orthodoxy.
For a model on how to destroy your political opponents, research how the Nazis ostracized the Jews before progressing to extermination.
Wow.
I dang sure don’t want to troll any of those. If one hit back, I’d be toast. Squished toast. Soggy, gooey, leaky toast.
Careful...don’t want to get too close to noble savage myths.
Trees burned entire for little more than entertainment
Birch bark used as a torture device/process
human bones with “pot wear” on the end suggesting a ‘rendering ‘ process
brain tanned leather
more but it’s Friday.....
KYPD
Did the native Americans get burn permits and file environmental impact statements?........
Wow. Fitchburg. I worked there for a short time.
Way back in the 20th Century, people had these in their homes for heat in the winter, and a huge pile of coal in the basement..............
What is now the Ohio Valley belonged to the Sioux and kindred tribes in 1400 or so. The Mandan were a farming tribe as were most of the Sioux. They were pushed west and north by more aggressive tribes such as the Huron. Burning forests was the most efficient way to clear land to plant corn, squash and beans a/k/a the three sisters. The ash remains enriched the soil.
Our Siouxian ancestors didn't pick Minnesota and the Dakotas because they liked better soil and colder weather. They picked them because they were isolated and less desirable so they could be left alone. For a few hundred years, it worked.
Native Americans can do anything they want, since they are a protected class.
And Whitey will be blamed for it.
Did you make boilers?...............
I wonder how much of this was learned behavior as in...
Lightning strike makes forest fire. Forest regrows after fire. Regrown forest better forest.
Fire makes better forest!
If indians burned stuff surely it was an accident caused by the firewater we were poisoning them with igniting the smallpox blankets we wrapped them in. So you see, it’s all the fault of the white people.
The article presents no evidence that the indians actually used fire for management. Without human meddling, lightning induced fires regularly clear out the understory and keep the forest healthy. I suspect that the indians simply allowed natural processes to keep the environment healthy. (Not that they could have controlled a raging forest fire.)
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