It is well-documented that Native Americans across the United States used fire to manipulate the environment. Fire is a primary tool for clearing trees or removing brush and if used extensively can fundamentally alter the landscape. There is great interest in better understanding the degree to which Native Americans used fire but broad disagreement over the extent of the impact they had on forests in the western United States. One argument, supported by paleoecological evidence of vegetation and climate change, states that the impacts were limited to small zones of occupation around village sites and that climate was the primary control on western forests. The other argument, supported by anthropological evidence, notes that fire was essential to Native American subsistence and forest structure was heavily controlled by people. There are few studies that have tried to bridge this divide, however such an approach is imperative to obtain a better understanding of the impacts that Native American use of fire had on western forests. This project will use paleoecological methods for reconstructing past vegetation and fire history as well as anthropological data from areas with well-documented histories of Native American land-use. The project will collect sediment cores from lakes and meadows and use pollen and charcoal analysis to reconstruct vegetation and fire history during the last 4,000 years. Fire history during the last 200 to 300 years will be reconstructed from fire-scarred trees near the core sites to establish modern fire dynamics. The project will also use existing archeological evidence to document the arrival and distribution of Native Americans across the region of study. The long-term climate history for the project sites will come from previous paleoecological studies in the region. The records of vegetation change and fire history for the project sites will then be compared to changes in Native American technology and land use practices in an effort to identify anomalous shifts in forest structure that are not explained by the climate record. Such changes would be attributed to Native American impacts.
This study is specifically designed to test the assertion that Native Americans had a larger role than previously supposed in shaping forest composition and structure through the use of fire. The results have the potential to contribute directly to land management decisions through a better understanding of pre-European forest dynamics, since current management practices often do not account for possible human intervention. The research will further demonstrate the extent to which past Native American land use practices may have been responsible for creating the forest structure inherited by modern land use managers. Native American groups concerned with preserving subsistence practices important to their culture may benefit from a better understanding of how forests were affected by similar activities in the past.
