Forgotten Fires

Forgotten Fires PDF Author: Omer Call Stewart
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806134239
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
A common stereotype about American Indians is that for centuries they lived in static harmony with nature, in a pristine wilderness that remained unchanged until European colonization. Omer C. Stewart was one of the first anthropologists to recognize that Native Americans made significant impact across a wide range of environments. Most important, they regularly used fire to manage plant communities and associated animal species through varied and localized habitat burning. In Forgotten Fires, editors Henry T. Lewis and M. Kat Anderson present Stewart's original research and insights, written in the 1950s yet still provocative today. Significant portions of Stewart's text have not been available until now, and Lewis and Anderson set Stewart's findings in the context of current knowledge about Native hunter-gatherers and their uses of fire.

Climate, Fire, and Native Americans

Climate, Fire, and Native Americans PDF Author: Anna Klimaszewski Patterson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
This dissertation addresses the following questions: 1. Can we identify the impact of Native American-set fires on the paleolandscape? 2. Are these impacts local or at a landscape-scale? 3. Could climate alone have produced the forest composition observed in the paleorecord, or was the addition of cultural burning necessary? To answer these questions, the paleolandscape at these two sites was reconstructed using a combination of pollen analysis (vegetation), charcoal analysis (fire history), and process-based landscape modeling. Charcoal analysis demonstrated consistency with regional fire reconstructions, which is expected given that charcoal is typically produced by severe, fast-moving crown fires. Anomalous periods of vegetation change were identified at both sites by comparing changes in climatic and fire-sensitive taxa (Abies and Quercus) with annually reconstructed paleoclimate data. Anomalies between vegetation and climate were most evident at Holey Meadow. Paleolandscape modeling at Holey Meadow further supported a Native American-influenced fire regime at the site. This research provides support for the hypothesis that Native American-set fire can be identified through the paleoenvironmental record, and that these high-frequency, low intensity fires were necessary to produce the forest composition observed in the pollen record. Both study sites demonstrate periods of local anthropogenic influence not explained by climate. These results, combined with three previously studied sites in mountainous areas of California begin to hint at spatially dispersed Native American influences on Sierra Nevadan forests. While this research increases our knowledge of potential periods of climatic and anthropogenic-influenced fire regimes in the southern Sierra Nevada, replication of this cross-disciplinary methodology throughout the Sierra Nevada is necessary to help determine the geographic extent of this land-use pattern.

Forgotten Fires

Forgotten Fires PDF Author: Omer Call Stewart
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806134239
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
A common stereotype about American Indians is that for centuries they lived in static harmony with nature, in a pristine wilderness that remained unchanged until European colonization. Omer C. Stewart was one of the first anthropologists to recognize that Native Americans made significant impact across a wide range of environments. Most important, they regularly used fire to manage plant communities and associated animal species through varied and localized habitat burning. In Forgotten Fires, editors Henry T. Lewis and M. Kat Anderson present Stewart's original research and insights, written in the 1950s yet still provocative today. Significant portions of Stewart's text have not been available until now, and Lewis and Anderson set Stewart's findings in the context of current knowledge about Native hunter-gatherers and their uses of fire.

Fire in California's Ecosystems

Fire in California's Ecosystems PDF Author: Jan W. van Wagtendonk
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520961919
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 567

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Book Description
Fire in California’s Ecosystems describes fire in detail—both as an integral natural process in the California landscape and as a growing threat to urban and suburban developments in the state. Written by many of the foremost authorities on the subject, this comprehensive volume is an ideal authoritative reference tool and the foremost synthesis of knowledge on the science, ecology, and management of fire in California. Part One introduces the basics of fire ecology, including overviews of historical fires, vegetation, climate, weather, fire as a physical and ecological process, and fire regimes, and reviews the interactions between fire and the physical, plant, and animal components of the environment. Part Two explores the history and ecology of fire in each of California's nine bioregions. Part Three examines fire management in California during Native American and post-Euro-American settlement and also current issues related to fire policy such as fuel management, watershed management, air quality, invasive plant species, at-risk species, climate change, social dynamics, and the future of fire management. This edition includes critical scientific and management updates and four new chapters on fire weather, fire regimes, climate change, and social dynamics.

Tending the Wild

Tending the Wild PDF Author: M. Kat Anderson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520933109
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
A complex look at California Native ecological practices as a model for environmental sustainability and conservation. John Muir was an early proponent of a view we still hold today—that much of California was pristine, untouched wilderness before the arrival of Europeans. But as this groundbreaking book demonstrates, what Muir was really seeing when he admired the grand vistas of Yosemite and the gold and purple flowers carpeting the Central Valley were the fertile gardens of the Sierra Miwok and Valley Yokuts Indians, modified and made productive by centuries of harvesting, tilling, sowing, pruning, and burning. Marvelously detailed and beautifully written, Tending the Wild is an unparalleled examination of Native American knowledge and uses of California's natural resources that reshapes our understanding of native cultures and shows how we might begin to use their knowledge in our own conservation efforts. M. Kat Anderson presents a wealth of information on native land management practices gleaned in part from interviews and correspondence with Native Americans who recall what their grandparents told them about how and when areas were burned, which plants were eaten and which were used for basketry, and how plants were tended. The complex picture that emerges from this and other historical source material dispels the hunter-gatherer stereotype long perpetuated in anthropological and historical literature. We come to see California's indigenous people as active agents of environmental change and stewardship. Tending the Wild persuasively argues that this traditional ecological knowledge is essential if we are to successfully meet the challenge of living sustainably.

Fire Ecology and Management: Past, Present, and Future of US Forested Ecosystems

Fire Ecology and Management: Past, Present, and Future of US Forested Ecosystems PDF Author: Cathryn H. Greenberg
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030732673
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
This edited volume presents original scientific research and knowledge synthesis covering the past, present, and potential future fire ecology of major US forest types, with implications for forest management in a changing climate. The editors and authors highlight broad patterns among ecoregions and forest types, as well as detailed information for individual ecoregions, for fire frequencies and severities, fire effects on tree mortality and regeneration, and levels of fire-dependency by plant and animal communities. The foreword addresses emerging ecological and fire management challenges for forests, in relation to sustainable development goals as highlighted in recent government reports. An introductory chapter highlights patterns of variation in frequencies, severities, scales, and spatial patterns of fire across ecoregions and among forested ecosystems across the US in relation to climate, fuels, topography and soils, ignition sources (lightning or anthropogenic), and vegetation. Separate chapters by respected experts delve into the fire ecology of major forest types within US ecoregions, with a focus on the level of plant and animal fire-dependency, and the role of fire in maintaining forest composition and structure. The regional chapters also include discussion of historic natural (lightning-ignited) and anthropogenic (Native American; settlers) fire regimes, current fire regimes as influenced by recent decades of fire suppression and land use history, and fire management in relation to ecosystem integrity and restoration, wildfire threat, and climate change. The summary chapter combines the major points of each chapter, in a synthesis of US-wide fire ecology and forest management into the future. This book provides current, organized, readily accessible information for the conservation community, land managers, scientists, students and educators, and others interested in how fire behavior and effects on structure and composition differ among ecoregions and forest types, and what that means for forest management today and in the future.

Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples in the United States

Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples in the United States PDF Author: Julie Koppel Maldonado
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319052667
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
With a long history and deep connection to the Earth’s resources, indigenous peoples have an intimate understanding and ability to observe the impacts linked to climate change. Traditional ecological knowledge and tribal experience play a key role in developing future scientific solutions for adaptation to the impacts. The book explores climate-related issues for indigenous communities in the United States, including loss of traditional knowledge, forests and ecosystems, food security and traditional foods, as well as water, Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost thaw and relocation. The book also highlights how tribal communities and programs are responding to the changing environments. Fifty authors from tribal communities, academia, government agencies and NGOs contributed to the book. Previously published in Climatic Change, Volume 120, Issue 3, 2013.

Keepers of the Central Fire

Keepers of the Central Fire PDF Author: Lorelei A. Lambert
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning
ISBN: 9780763709235
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
The health of Native Americans is intimately tied to the health of the environment. Yet abuses of land, water, and air continue to compromise the health of native people and their land rights. This fascinating book explores this intimate relationship between people and the land, and environment and health. Here is an important message for health care providers, ecologists, and those who attempt to live their lives in harmony with the earth.

Indians, Fire, and the Land in the Pacific Northwest

Indians, Fire, and the Land in the Pacific Northwest PDF Author: Robert Thomas Boyd
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780870717987
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description


Evidence for Native American Land-use Impacts on Forest Structure and Fire Regimes in the Lower Klamath River Region of California

Evidence for Native American Land-use Impacts on Forest Structure and Fire Regimes in the Lower Klamath River Region of California PDF Author: Jeffrey Nathan Crawford
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Observers of human/landscape interactions generally agree that Native Americans influenced the landscape, but disagreement exists regarding the scale and degree of this disturbance. The differentiation of anthropogenic from climatic impacts on forest structure and composition is difficult using traditional paleoecological methodologies. The goal of this dissertation is to examine potential human impacts in the paleoecological record using an alternative methodology that incorporates elements of paleoecology, ethnographies, and regional archeology. This will provide a better understanding of how to identify potential anthropogenic signals in the late Holocene and improve upon existing paleoecological methodologies by allowing a more complete analysis of how human culture has impacted physical landscapes. Two lake basins in the Klamath Mountains of northwestern California provided study sites to use a cross-disciplinary methodology. There are three significant facets to this research. The first is a comparison of cross-dated fire scars to the sedimentary charcoal record of fire events. This was used to establish whether the fires detected in the paleoecological (charcoal) record represented local fire events that occurred within or near the lake basins. The results suggest that, while not a perfect match, fire events observed in the sedimentary charcoal record (as charcoal peaks) corresponded with between 50.0% (at Fish Lake) and 87.5% (at Lake Ogaromtoc) of known and inferred fire events detected as fire-scarred trees in the study basins. The second step in detecting anthropogenic landscape impacts in the paleoecological record was to identify anomalous periods of fire and vegetation dynamics not well explained by climate. Vegetation was reconstructed through the analysis of pollen. Paleofire dynamics were reconstructed through the analysis of sedimentary charcoal. Three anomalous periods were identified for further evaluation. In the final step of this research, these three anomalous periods were examined to see if cultural land-use patterns drawn from the regional archeological and anthropological record could better explain the observed dynamics. In all three instances, cultural changes in population or land use patterns better explained the observed dynamics than climatic interpretations, providing evidence of Native American impacts on the fire and vegetation dynamics of the two study sites in the late Holocene. This research provides subtle but clear evidence that human impacts are present at both study sites in modern and pre-historic times. Native American burning practices that have been banned since European settlement strongly influenced the forest structure and fire regimes of the Klamath Mountains. The cessation of Native American burning and modern fire suppression has led to a forest assemblage at each site that is unique in the late Holocene record. This research increases our understanding of how past forests in the Klamath Mountains responded to anthropogenic and climatic forces and encourages modern forest management practices to tailor restoration prescriptions to meet multiple human and ecosystem needs. This research also has broader implications for paleoecological methodologies. A single study cannot resolve the debate over the scale of Native American influences, but further replication of this cross-disciplinary methodology is encouraged at other sites throughout California. Further replication will build a broader dataset of sites, help to determine the scale of Native American impacts, and foster a greater understanding of the connections between the cultural and physical aspects of landscapes in the Klamath Mountains and beyond.

Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape

Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape PDF Author: Thomas Vale
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597266027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
For nearly two centuries, the creation myth for the United States imagined European settlers arriving on the shores of a vast, uncharted wilderness. Over the last two decades, however, a contrary vision has emerged, one which sees the country's roots not in a state of "pristine" nature but rather in a "human-modified landscape" over which native peoples exerted vast control. Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape seeks a middle ground between those conflicting paradigms, offering a critical, research-based assessment of the role of Native Americans in modifying the landscapes of pre-European America. Contributors focus on the western United States and look at the question of fire regimes, the single human impact which could have altered the environment at a broad, landscape scale, and which could have been important in almost any part of the West. Each of the seven chapters is written by a different author about a different subregion of the West, evaluating the question of whether the fire regimes extant at the time of European contact were the product of natural factors or whether ignitions by Native Americans fundamentally changed those regimes. An introductory essay offers context for the regional chapters, and a concluding section compares results from the various regions and highlights patterns both common to the West as a whole and distinctive for various parts of the western states. The final section also relates the findings to policy questions concerning the management of natural areas, particularly on federal lands, and of the "naturalness" of the pre-European western landscape.