Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T12:26:18.982Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Palynological Evidence of the Effects of the Deerskin Trade on Forest Fires during the Eighteenth Century in Southeastern North America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

H. Thomas Foster II  and
Arthur D. Cohen
H. Thomas Foster II
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Northern Kentucky University, 212 Landrum, Highland Heights, Kentucky, 41099. [email protected]
Arthur D. Cohen
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, 29208
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Three palynological cores from the coastal plain of Georgia and Alabama were analyzed for paleobotanical remains. Results show that the Indians of southeastern North America increased forest fires used in hunting as a response to the demand for deer hides during the early eighteenth century. Palynological data are consistent with known anthropogenic changes in the region. Charcoal abundance increased significantly between A.D. 1715 and 1770, which is the period of the most intensive hunting by the Indians. This study shows that forest fires from hunting had a significant and measurable effect on the evolution of the biophysical environment.

Résumé

Résumé

Se analizaron tres nucleos palinologicos de laplanicie costera de Georgia y Alabama para buscar restos paleobotánicos. Los resultados muestran que los indios del sureste de Norteamérica incrementaron los incendios forestales para cacería como respuesta a la demanda depieles de venado durante la primera parte del siglo XVIII. Los datos palinológicos son consistentes con cambios antropogénicos conocidos en la región. La abundancia de carbón vegetal aumentó de modo significativo entre 1715 y 1770, que es el período de la caza más intensiva por los indios. Este estudio muestra que los incendios forestales para la caza tuvieron un efecto significativo y mesurable sobre la evolución del entorno biofísico.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 35 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Abrams, Marc D. 1992 Fire and the Development of Oak Forests. Bioscience 42(5):346–353.Google Scholar
Adair, James 1968 The History of the American Indians, Particularly Those Nations Adjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia. Series in American Studies. Johnson Reprint Corp., New York.Google Scholar
Anderson, David G. 1994 The Savannah River Chiefdoms: Political Change in the Late Prehistoric Southeast. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Anderson, M. Kat 1994 Prehistoric Anthropogenic Wildland Burning by Hunter-Gatherer Societies in the Temperate Regions: A Net Source, Sink, or Neutral to the Global Carbon Budget? Chemosphere 29(5):913–934.Google Scholar
Balee, William L. 1994 People of the Fallow: Historical Ecology of Foraging in Lowland South America. In Conservation of Neotropical Forests: Working from Traditional Resource Use, edited by K. H. Redford and C. Padoch, pp. 35–57. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Barbour, Michael G., Burk, Jack H., Pitts, Wanna D., Gilliam, Frank S., and Schwartz, Mark W. 1999 Terrestrial Plant Ecology. Third ed. Addison Wesley, London.Google Scholar
Batek, Michael J., Rebertus, Alan J., Schroeder, Walter R., Haithcoat, Timothy L., Compas, Eric, and Guyette, Richard P. 1999 Reconstruction of Early Nineteenth-Century Vegetation and Fire Regimes in the Missouri Ozarks. Journal of Biogeography 26:397–412.Google Scholar
Black, Brian, Thomas Foster, H. II, and Abrams, Marc 2002 Combining Environmentally Dependent and Independent Analyses of Witness Tree Data in East-Central Alabama. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 32:2060–2075.Google Scholar
Boyko, Wayne 2004 Faunal Analysis. In Following in the Footsteps of Gordon Willey: Excavation at the Town of Kasita (9CE1) Draft Report submitted to Fort Benning, Georgia. Panamerican Consultants, Inc., Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Braund, Kathryn E. Holland 1993 Deerskins & Duffels: Creek IndianTrade with Anglo-America, 1685–1815. Indians of the Southeast. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln Nebraska.Google Scholar
Burchard, I. 1998 Anthropogenic Impact on the Climate Since Man Began to Hunt. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 139(1998):1–14.Google Scholar
Clark, J. S., and Royall, P. D. 1995 Transformation of a Northern Hardwood Forest by Aboriginal (Iroquois) Fire: Charcoal Evidence from Craw ford Lake, Ontario, Canada. The Holocene 5(1):1–9.Google Scholar
Clark, James S., and Daniel Royall, P. 1996 Local and Regional Sediment Charcoal Evidence for Fire Regimes in Presettlement North-Eastern North America. Journal of Ecology 84(3):365–382.Google Scholar
Cohen, Arthur D. 2003 Palynological Study of Fort Benning, Georgia and Alabama. Report Submitted to Panamerican Consultants, Inc. University of South Carolina, Department of Geological Sciences.Google Scholar
Cohen, Arthur D., and Thomas Foster, H. II 2004 Palynological Study of Fort Benning, Georgia. A report submitted to the Environmental Division, Fort Benning, Georgia. Panamerican Consultants, Inc.Google Scholar
Conner, Richard N., and Dickson, James 1997 Relationships between Bird Communities and Forest Age, Structure, Species Composition and Fragmentation in the West Gulf Coastal Plain. Texas Journal of Science 49(3 Suppliment):123–138.Google Scholar
Crane, Verner W. 2004 The Southern Frontier 1670–1732. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Cutshall, N. H., Larsen, I. L., and Olsen, C. R 1983 Direct Analysis of 210Pb in Sediment Samples: Self Absorption Correction. Nuclear Instrumentation and Methods 206:309–317.Google Scholar
Dale, Virginia H., and Beyeler, Suzanne C. 2001 Challenges in the Development and Use of Ecological Indicators. Ecological Indicators 1:3–10.Google Scholar
Dale, Virginia H., Beyeler, Suzanne C. and Jackson, Barbara 2002 Understory Vegetation Indicators on Anthropogenic Disturbance in Longleaf Pine Forests at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. Ecological Indicators 1:155–170.Google Scholar
Dale, Virginia H., Feminella, J., Foster, T., MulhoUand, P., Olsen, L., Peacock, A., and White, D. 2002 Ecological Indicators for Land Management. Paper presented at the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Dale, Virginia H., Feminella, Jack, Foster, Thomas, Mulholland, Pat and Olsen, Lisa M. 2003 Selecting a Suite of Ecological Indicators for Land Management. Paper presented at the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Dale, Virginia H., Olsen, Lisa Mai, and Thomas Foster, H. II 2007 Landscape Patterns as Indicators of Ecological Change at Fort Benning, Georgia. Landscape and Urban Planning, in press.Google Scholar
Dale, Virginia H., and Wolfe, Amy 2003 Developing Land-Use Categories at Fort Benning for the SEMP Intigration Plan. In Summary from discussion at Fort Benning on May 13 about Land Use Categories, edited by B. Larimore, P. Swidereck, T. Greene, M. Mulligan, R. Addingdon, V. H. Dale and A. Wolfe. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.Google Scholar
Delcourt, Hazel R. 1987 The Impact of Prehistoric Agriculture and Land Occupation on Natural Vegetation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 2(2):39–44.Google Scholar
Delcourt, Hazel R., and Delcourt, Paul A. 1988 Quaternary landscape Ecology: Relevant Scales in Space and Time. Landscape Ecology 2(1):23–44.Google Scholar
Delcourt, Hazel R., and Delcourt, Paul A. 1997 Pre-Columbian Native American Use of Fire on Southern Appalachian Landscapes. Conservation Biology 11(4):1010–1014.Google Scholar
Delcourt, Paul A., Delcourt, Hazel R., Cridlebaugh, Patricia A., and Chapman, Jefferson 1986 Holocene Ethnobotanical and Paleoecological Record of Human Impact on Vegetation in the Little Tennessee River Valley, Tennessee. Quaternary Research 25:330–349.Google Scholar
Douglas, Marianne S. V., Smol, John P., Savelle, James M., and Bais, Jules M. 2004 Prehistoric Inuit Whalers Affected Arctic Freshwater Ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 101(6):1613–1617.Google Scholar
Ethridge, Robbie Franklyn 2003 The Creek Country: the Creek Indians and Their World, 1796–1816. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Foster, D. R., and Zebryk, T. M. 1993 Long-Term Vegetation Dynamics and Disturbance History of a Tsuga-Dominated Forest in New England. Ecology 74(4):982–998.Google Scholar
Foster, H. Thomas II 2003 Dynamic Optimization of Horticulture among the Muscogee Creek Indians of the Southeastern United States. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22(2003):411–424.Google Scholar
Foster, H. Thomas II 2004a Archaeological and Ethnohistoric Evidence for the Yuchi Indians within the Chattahoochee and Flint River Watersheds in the Southeastern United States (1715–1830). Paper presented at the American Society of Ethnohistory, Chicago, Illinois.Google Scholar
Foster, H. Thomas II 2004b Evidence of Historic Creek Indian Migration from a Regional and Direct Historic Analysis of Ceramic Types. Southeastern Archaeology 23(1):65–84.Google Scholar
Foster, H. Thomas II 2007 The Archaeology of the Lower Muskogee Indians, 1715–1836. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Foster, H. Thomas II, Black, Brian, and Abrams, Marc D. 2004 A Witness Tree Analysis of the Effects of Native American Indians on the Pre-European Settlement Forests in East-Central Alabama. Human Ecology 32(1):27–47.Google Scholar
Fritz, Gayle J. 2000 Levels of Native Biodiversity in Eastern North America. In Biodiversity & Native Americans, edited by P. E. Minnis and W. J. Elisens, pp. 223–247. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Green, Alfred J. 1997 Soil survey of Chattahoochee and Marion counties, Georgia. Natural Resources Conservation Service, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Gremillion, Kristen J. 1995 Compartative Paleoethnobotany of Three Native Southeastern Communities of the Historic Period. Southeastern Archaeology 14(1):1–16.Google Scholar
Guyette, R. P., Muzika, R. M., and Dey, D.C. 2002 Dynamics of and Anthropogenic Fire Regime. Ecosystems 5(5)472–486.Google Scholar
Guyette, R. P., and Spetich, M. A. 2003 Fire History of Oak-Pine forests in the Lower Boston Mountains, Arkansas, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 180(2003):463–474.Google Scholar
Guyette, Richard P., Dey, Daniel C., and Stambaugh, Michael C. 2003 Fire and Human History of a Barren-Forest Mosaic in Southern Indiana. American Midland Naturalist 149:21–34.Google Scholar
Hahn, Steven 2004 The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670–1763. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Hambler, Clive 2004 Letter to the Editor: Virgin Rainforests and Conservation. Science 305:943.Google Scholar
Hammett, Julia E. 1992 The Shapes of Adaptation: Historical Ecology of Anthropogenic Landscapes in the Southeastern United States. Landscape Ecology 7(2):121–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammett, Julia E. 2000 Ethnohistory of aboriginal landscapes in the southeastern United States. In Biodiversity & Native America, edited by P. E. Minnis and W. J. Elisens, pp. 248–299. University of Oklahoma, Norman.Google Scholar
Harris, Larry D. 1984 The Fragmented Forest: Island Biogeography Theory and the Preservation of Biotic Diversity. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Heckenberger, Michael J., Kuikuro, Afukaka, Kuikuro, Urissapa Tabata, Christian Russell, J., Schmidt, Morgan, Fausto, Carlos, and Franchetto, Bruna 2003 Amazonia 1492: Pristine Forest or Cultural Parkland? Science 301:1710–1714.Google Scholar
Hudson, Charles 1994 The Hernando de Soto Expedition, 1539–1543. In The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521–1704, edited by C. Hudson and C. C. Tesser, pp. 74–103. University of Georgia, Athens.Google Scholar
Hunter, Malcolm L. Jr. 1999 Maintaining Biodiversity in Forest Ecosystems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Johnson, Christopher N. 2005 The Remaking of Australia’s Ecology. Science 309:255–256.Google Scholar
Kammen, Daniel M., Smith, Kirk R., Terry Rambo, A., and Khalil, M. A. K. 1994 Preindustrial Human Enviornmental Impacts: Are There Lessons for Global Change Science and Policy? Chemosphere 29(5):827–832.Google Scholar
Kane, Sharyn, and Keeton, Richard 2000 Fort Benning: The Land and the People. Environmental Management Division, Fort Benning, Georgia.Google Scholar
Keeley, Jon E. 2002 Native American Impacts on Fire Regimes of the California Coastal Ranges. Journal of Biogeography 29:303–320.Google Scholar
Knight, Vernon James Jr. 1985 Tukabatchee: Archaeological Investigations at an Historic Creek Town, Elmore County, Alabama, 1984. Office of Archaeological Research, Alabama State Museum of Natural History, The University of Alabama. Copies available from 45.Google Scholar
Kohler, Timothy A., and Van West, Carla R. 1996 The Calculus of Self-interest in the Development of Cooperation: Sociopolitical Development and Risk Among the Northern Anasazi. In Evolving Complexity and Environmental Risk in the Prehistoric Southwest, Proceedings of the Workshop “Resource Stress, Economic Uncertainty, and Human Response in the Prehistoric Southwest,” Held February 25–29, 1992 in Santa Fe, NM, edited by J. A. Tainter and B. B. Tainter, pp. 169–196. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Lorimer, Craig G. 2001 Historical and Ecological Roles of Disturbance in Eastern North American Forests:9,000 Years of Change. Wildlife Society Bulletin 29(2)425–439.Google Scholar
McGraw, James B., and Furedi, Mary Ann 2005 Deer Browsing and Population Viability of a Forest Understory Plant. Science 307(11 February 2005):920–923.Google Scholar
Miller, Gifford H., Fogel, Marilyn L., Magee, John W., Gagen, Michael K., Clarkem, Simon J., and Johnson, Beverly J. 2005 Ecosystem Collapse in Pleistocene Australia and a Human Role in Megafaunal Extinction. Science 309:287–290.Google Scholar
Minnis, Paul E., and Elisens, Wayne J. (editors) 2000 Biodiversity & Native America. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma.Google Scholar
Moore, Alexander (editor) 1988 Nairne’s Muskhogean Journals: The 1708 Expedition to the Mississippi River. University Press of Mississippi, Mississippi.Google Scholar
Muller, Jon 1997 Mississippian Political Economy. Plenum, New York.Google Scholar
Newsom, Lee A., and Ruggiero, Laura 1998 Archaeobotany. In The Yuchi Town Site (1Ru63), Russell County, Alabama. An Assessment of the Impacts of Looting. Prepared for Environmental Management Division, Department of the Army, Headquarters U.S. Army Infantry Center, Fort Benning, Georgia DoD Project No. 940683, edited by M. L. Hargrave. United States Corp of Engineers, Environmental and Development Research Center, Champaign, Illinois.Google Scholar
Newsom, Lee A., and Wing, Elizabeth S. 2004 On Land and Sea: Native American Uses of Biological Resources in the West Indies. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Patterson, William A. III, Edwards, Kevin, and Maguire, David J. 1987 Microscopic Charcoal as a Fossil Indicator of Fire? Quaternary Science Reviewer 6:3–23.Google Scholar
Pavao-Zuckerman, Barnet 2000 Vertebrate subsistence in the Mississippian-Historic transition. Southeastern Archaeology 19(2):135–144.Google Scholar
Peres, Carlos A., Baider, Claudia, Zuidema, Pieter A., Wadt, Lucia H. O., Kainer, Karen A., Gomes-Silva, Daisy A. P., Salomao, Rafael P., Simoes, Luciana L., Franciosi, Eduardo R. N., Valverde, Fernando Cornejo, Gribel, Rogerio, Shepard, Glenn H. Jr., Kanashiro, Milton, Coventry, Peter, Yu, Douglas W., Watkinson, Andrew R., and Freckleton, Robert P. 2003 Demographic Threats to the Sustainability of Brazil Nut Exploitation. Science 302:2112–2114.Google Scholar
Phillips, G. W, and Marlow, K.W. 1976 Automatic Analysis of Gamma-Ray Spectra from Germanium Detectors. Nuclear Instrumentation and Methods 137:525–536.Google Scholar
Piker, Joshua A. 2004 Okfuskee : A Creek Indian Town in Colonial America. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Pyne, Stephen J. 1983 Indian Fires. Natural History 92(2):6–11.Google Scholar
Pyne, Stephen J. 1994 Maintaining Focus: An Introduction to Anthropogenic Fire. Chemosphere 29(5):889–911.Google Scholar
Reice, Seth R. 2001 The Silver Lining: The Benefits of Natural Disasters. Princeton University Press, Princeton.Google Scholar
Robock, Alan, and Graf, Hans-Friedrich 1994 Effects of Pre-Industrial Human Activities on Climate. Chemosphere 29(5):1087–1097.Google Scholar
Ruddiman, William F. 2003 The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era Began Thousands of Years Ago. Climate Change 61(3):261–294.Google Scholar
Rue, David J. 1987 Early Agriculture and Early Postclassic Maya Occupation in Western Honduras. Nature 326(March 19):285–286.Google Scholar
Rue, David J., Webster, David, and Traverse, Alfred 2002 Late Holocene Fire and Agriculture in the Copan Valley, Honduras. Ancient Mesoamerica 13(2002):267–272.Google Scholar
Ruffner, Charles M. 1999 Anthropogenic and Physiographic Influences on the Composition and Structure of Pre-European Settlement Forests of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Russell, Emily W.B. 1983 Indian Set Fires in the Forests of the Northeastern United States. Ecology 64(1):78–88.Google Scholar
Saunt, Claudio 1999 A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733–1816. Cambridge Studies in North American History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2001 Impacts of Human-Caused Fires on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning, and Their Causes in Tropical, Temperate and Boreal Forest Biomes. United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity Technical Series No. 5. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal.Google Scholar
Shaw, Justine M. 2003 Climate Change and Deforestation: Implications for the Maya Collapse. Ancient Mesoamerica 14(2003):157–167.Google Scholar
Smith, Bruce D., and Wesley Cowan, C. 2003 Domesticated Crop Plants and the Evolution of Food Production Economies in Eastern North America. In People and Plants in Ancient Eastern North America, edited by P. E. Minnis, pp. 105–125. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Stahle, David W., and Cleaveland, Malcolm K. 1992 Reconstruction andAnalysis of Spring Rainfall Over the Southeastern U.S. for the Past 1000 Years. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 73(12):1947–1961.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Alan P. 1996 Risk, Anthropogenic Environments, and Western Anasazi Subsistence. In Evolving Complexity and Environmental Risk in the Prehistoric Southwest, Proceedings of the Workshop “Resource Stress, Economic Uncertainty, and Human Response in the Prehistoric Southwest,” Held February 25–29, 1992 in Santa Fe, NM, edited by J. A. Tainter and B. B. Tainter. Addsion-Wesley Publishing Group, Reading, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Swanton, John Reed 1922 Early History of the Creek Indians & their Neighbors. Southeastern Classics in Archaeology, Anthropology, and History. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.Google Scholar
Swanton, John Reed 1946 The Indians of the Southeastern United States. Bulletin / US Bureau of American Ethnology no. 137. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Tainter, Joseph A., and Tainter, Bonnie Bagley (editors) 1996 Evolving Complexity and Environmental Risk in the Prehistoric Southwest, Proceedings of the Workshop “Resource Stress, Economic Uncertainty, and Human Response in the Prehistoric Southwest,” Held February 25–29, 1992 in Santa Fe, NM. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Wagner, Gail E. 2003 Eastern Woodlands Anthropogenic Ecology. In People and Plants in Eastern North America, edited by P. E. Minnis, pp. 126–171. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Walker, Lawrence R., and del Moral, Roger 2003 Primary Succession and Ecosystem Rehabilitation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Waselkov, Greg 1978 Evolution of Deer Hunting in the Eastern Woodlands. MidContinential Journal of Archaeology 3(1):15–34.Google Scholar
Waselkov, Gregory A., and Holland Braund, Kathryn E. (editors) 1995 William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska.Google Scholar
Watts, W. A. 1971 Postglacial and Interglacial Vegetation History of Southern Georgia and Central Florida. Ecology 52(4):676–690.Google Scholar
Wood, G. D., Gabriel, A. M., and Lawson, J. C. (editors) 1996 Palynological Techniques—Processing and Microscopy. American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists Foundation.Google Scholar
Woodcock, D. W., and Wells, P. V. 1994 The Burning of the New World: The Extent and Significance of Broadcast burning by Early Humans. Chemosphere 29(5):935–948.Google Scholar