Native American depopulation, reforestation, and fire regimes in the Southwest United States, 1492–1900 CE (original) (raw)
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021
The intersection of expanding human development and wildland landscapes-the "wildland-urban interface" or WUI-is one of the most vexing contexts for fire management because it involves complex interacting systems of people and nature. Here, we document the dynamism and stability of an ancient WUI that was apparently sustainable for more than 500 y. We combine ethnography, archaeology , paleoecology, and ecological modeling to infer intensive wood and fire use by Native American ancestors of Jemez Pueblo and the consequences on fire size, fire-climate relationships, and fire intensity. Initial settlement of northern New Mexico by Jemez farmers increased fire activity within an already dynamic landscape that experienced frequent fires. Wood harvesting for domestic fuel and architectural uses and abundant, small, patchy fires created a landscape that burned often but only rarely burned extensively. Depopulation of the forested landscape due to Spanish colonial impacts resulted in a rebound of fuels accompanied by the return of widely spreading, frequent surface fires. The sequence of more than 500 y of perennial small fires and wood collecting followed by frequent "free-range" wildland surface fires made the landscape resistant to extreme fire behavior, even when climate was conducive and surface fires were large. The ancient Jemez WUI offers an alternative model for fire management in modern WUI in the western United States, and possibly other settings where local management of woody fuels through use (domestic wood collecting) coupled with small prescribed fires may make these communities both self-reliant and more resilient to wildfire hazards. cultural burning | Ancestral Pueblo | ponderosa pine | New Mexico | fire history
Legacies of Indigenous land use shaped past wildfire regimes in the Basin-Plateau Region, USA
Communications Earth & Environment
Climatic conditions exert an important influence on wildfire activity in the western United States; however, Indigenous farming activity may have also shaped the local fire regimes for millennia. The Fish Lake Plateau is located on the Great Basin–Colorado Plateau boundary, the only region in western North America where maize farming was adopted then suddenly abandoned. Here we integrate sedimentary archives, tree rings, and archeological data to reconstruct the past 1200 years of fire, climate, and human activity. We identify a period of high fire activity during the apex of prehistoric farming between 900 and 1400 CE, and suggest that farming likely obscured the role of climate on the fire regime through the use of frequent low-severity burning. Climatic conditions again became the dominant driver of wildfire when prehistoric populations abandoned farming around 1400 CE. We conclude that Indigenous populations shaped high-elevation mixed-conifer fire regimes on the Fish Lake Plate...
A HARD TIME TO DATE: THE SCOTT COUNTY PUEBLO (14SC1) AND PUEBLOAN RESIDENTS OF THE HIGH PLAINS
American Antiquity, 2018
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Puebloan women (if not entire families) were incorporated into Apache Dismal River communities in western Kansas. In at least one site (14SC1), Puebloan people lived in a small masonry pueblo. We evaluate the timing and nature of the Puebloan occupation at 14SC1 and its relationship to the Dismal River population at the site. We use a Bayesian analytical framework to evaluate different models of the pueblo's use history, constraining 12 radiocarbon dates by their stratigraphic data and then comparing this framework with different temporal models based on the historical record. We conclude that Dismal River people lived at 14SC1 prior to the appearance of Pueblo migrants, sometime between cal AD 1490 and 1650. Construction and early use of the pueblo by migrants from the Rio Grande valley occurred between cal AD 1630 and 1660, and the pueblo was closed by burning sometime between cal AD 1640 and 1690. Site 14SC1 lacks Rio Grande Glaze Ware, and its residents seem rarely to have engaged with the groups in the Southern Plains Macroeconomy. Our results contribute to studies of indigenous community formation and Puebloan residential mobility during the Spanish colonial period. Durante los siglos XVII y XVIII, las mujeres Pueblo (o posiblemente familias enteras) fueron incorporadas a las comunidades Apaches de la cultura Dismal River en Kansas occidental. Por lo menos en un sitio (14SC1), los indígenas Pueblo vivieron en un pequeño poblado de mampostería. Evaluamos la cronología y la naturaleza de la ocupación Pueblo en 14SC1 y su relación con la ocupación Dismal River en el sitio. Usamos un marco analítico bayesiano para evaluar diferentes modelos de la cronología ocupacional del pueblo, delimitando los rangos de doce fechas de radiocarbono por sus posiciones estratigráficas y luego comparando este marco con diferentes modelos temporales basados en el registro histórico. Concluimos que los indígenas Dismal River vivieron en 14SC1 antes de la aparición de los migrantes Pueblo en algún momento entre 1490 y 1650 cal dC. La construcción y el uso inicial del pueblo por migrantes procedentes del valle del Río Grande ocurrió entre 1630 y 1660 cal dC, y el pueblo fue cerrado por un incendio entre 1640 y 1690 cal dC. El sitio 14SC1 carece de vajillas del estilo Río Grande con engobe, y sus residentes parecen haber tenidos interacciones limitadas con los grupos que participaron en la macroeconomía de las Planicies del Sur. Nuestros resultados contribuyen al estudio de la formación de comunidades indígenas y la movilidad residencial Pueblo durante el período colonial español.
2015
OF DISSERTATION LIVING ON THE EDGE: RETHINKING PUEBLO PERIOD: (AD 700 – AD 1225) INDIGENOUS SETTLEMENT PATTERNS WITHIN GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, NOTHERN ARIZONA This dissertation challenges traditional interpretations that indigenous groups who settled the Grand Canyon during the Pueblo Period (AD 700 -1225) relied heavily on maize to meet their subsistence needs. Instead they are viewed as dynamic ecosystem engineers who employed fire and natural plant succession to engage in a wild plant subsistence strategy that was supplemented to varying degrees by maize. By examining the relationship between archaeological sites and the natural environment throughout the Canyon, new settlement pattern models were developed. These models attempt to account for the spatial distribution of Virgin people, as represented by Virgin Gray Ware ceramics, Kayenta as represented by Tusayan Gray Ware ceramics, and the Cohonina as represented by San Francisco Mountain Gray Ware ceramics, through an exami...