Native American use of fire in ecosystems

[1] This influence over the fire regime was part of the environmental cycles and maintenance of wildlife habitats that sustained the cultures and economies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

[3][4][5][6][7] Radical disruption of indigenous burning practices occurred with European colonization and the forced relocation of those who had historically maintained the landscape.

Fire was used in warfare for the protection of settlements[19][20][15][21] Authors such as William Henry Hudson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Francis Parkman, and Henry David Thoreau contributed to the widespread myth[16] that pre-Columbian North America was a pristine, natural wilderness, "a world of barely perceptible human disturbance.”[22] At the time of these writings, however, enormous tracts of land had already been allowed to succeed to climax due to the reduction in anthropogenic fires after the depopulation of native peoples from epidemics of diseases introduced by Europeans in the 16th century, forced relocation, and warfare.

[23] Terra preta soils, created by slow burning, are found mainly in the Amazon basin, where estimates of the area covered range from 0.1 to 0.3%, or 6,300 to 18,900 km2 of low forested Amazonia to 1.0% or more.

The Blackfoot, Cree, and Nez Perce tribes would eat the bulbs of the Common Camas (Camassia quamash), which could be steamed or dried to make flour.

[28] Yampa, part of the genus Perideridia and also known as wild carrots, are harvested by the Yokut tribe of the San Joaquin Valley, California.

They include: By the time that European explorers first arrived in North America, millions of acres of "natural" landscapes were already manipulated and maintained for human use.

In San Pedro Bay in 1542, chaparral fires provided that signal to Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, and later to others across all of what would be named California.

[46] By the 19th century, many indigenous nations had been forced to sign treaties with the federal government and relocate to reservations,[47] which were sometimes hundreds of miles away from their ancestral homelands.

As sociologist Kari Norgaard has shown, "Fire suppression was mandated by the very first session of the California Legislature in 1850 during the apex of genocide in the northern part of the state.

"[48] For example, the Karuk peoples of Northern California "burn [the forest] to enhance the quality of forest food species like elk, deer, acorns, mushrooms, and lilies, as well as basketry materials such as hazel and willow, but also keep travel routes open.”[41] When such relationships to their environment were made illegal through fire suppression, it would have dramatic consequences on their methods of relating to one another, their environment, their food sources, and their educational practices.

[48][49][50] Thus, many scholars have argued that fire suppression can be seen as a form of "colonial ecological violence" which results in particular risks and harms experienced by native peoples and communities.

They are now learning from traditional fire practitioners and using controlled burns to reduce fuel accumulations, change species composition, and manage vegetation structure and density for healthier forests and rangelands.

Native Americans in California and Australia have known the risk of overgrown forests for millennia and used these tactics to prevent wildfires and encourage beneficial plant growth.

[66] Another study of California's Quiroste Valley was conducted using visible plant remains (macrobotanical), charcoal or ash (anthracological), and local ecological data.

[67] Research conducted by Paul Delcort at Cliff Palace Pond (Jackson County) pioneered the study of anthropogenic fires in the United States using archaeological techniques.

[33] A study of sites in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, that were inhabited from 3000 BCE to 1000 CE found that the precedence of low severity landscape fires was correlated with periods of habitation by looking at charcoal sentiment samples.

The research found that periods of intense burning were correlated with increases in chestnut trees through looking at fossilized pollen samples.

The study also found, from fungal evidence, that there were more herbivores present at times of increased burning and that the fires that occurred during the period of ancient settlement were less severe than modern wildfires in the region.

[70] A paleoarchealogical study of the Ohio River Valley in West Virginia found that ecosystems experienced coevolution with humans due to land management practices.