VIII. From Historical Ecology to Hysterical Ecology? Past Landscapes to Better Determine the Nature of Anthropogenic Landscapes

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Historically, indigenous groups such as the Wa She Shu (Washoe), Numu (Northern Paiute), and Newe (Shoshone) have been stewards to regions of the Great Basin they inhabited and have cultivated a strong connection to the land. One such culturally important species is the single leafed pinyon pine (Pinus monophyla) as it provided much needed sustenance during harsh winters. However, due to factors such as cultural assimilation, loss of land, declining resource availability, and anthropogenic climate change leading to lower masting events, several indigenous groups have been stunted or have completely lost their connection to this culturally important resource. This loss of stewardship has led to decline of biodiversity within the pinyon pine-juniper community. Such losses include herbivorous arthropods that utilize pinyon-juniper communities as a food resource. I plan to quantify the interactions between anthropogenic climate change factors, loss of indigenous stewardship, and herbivorous arthropod populations.

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Since the day and age of colonization in Brazil’s Amazon region, indigenous peoples and their habitats have undergone significant changes. Occupation by European settlers and later by Brazil’s moving frontier have impacted indigenous communities and their livelihoods, invariably altering landscapes and imposing new land use regimes. An expanding area of research in the area of historical ecology has unearthed past management regimes by indigenous peoples but can often dismiss the impacts of modernization and the current forces of globalization. In this paper I discuss some often ignored factors that come to play in understanding the footprint of anthropogenic landscapes in Amazonia, looking at the interplay between different actors engaging in this region. As such, I attempt to better fine tune conscious management activities and the net effect of different human settlement patterns in the Amazon region drawing on work among the Awá-Guajá and other indigenous communities. 

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As current weather patterns become more extreme, climate watchers are confident our plight will only get worse. Some now speculate about our extinction. Half a century ago, anthropologist Elizabeth Colsen argued that while food scarcity has occurred many times in history, severe climate change could lead to dramatic increases in plagues, famines, civil unrest, revolts, reprisals, invasions, and “a loss of confidence in both the social and natural order." Through her ethnographic research and literature review, she identified “hard times” stories and coping strategies which were shared generationally. Based on my careful study of the current climate science, I hypothesize that some of our species will survive the coming collapse. I dig into our archaeological past for evidence of persistent adaptations that have withstood the test of time. I conclude with speculations about what our future might look like, based on a historical ecology of the past.

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Imagine life in the northern grasslands centuries ago. Was it, as some say, an American Serengeti, teeming with bison and other wildlife? Or, was it a land of occasional searing droughts and deep snows that sometimes left the countryside strewn with dead animals? We explore these questions by perusing the late 18th Century climate together with wildlife responses to droughts and snow. We transcribed daily journals (activities plus weather: wind direction and strength, cloud cover, rain or snow and, rarely, how warm or cold it was. We compiled weather data for five posts totalling 234 months and daily temperatures from one posts. We used these data to help estimate conditions for local wildlife by how numbers of bison, elk, and deer fluctuate with drought and snow in today’s Yellowstone Park. Indigenous people as well as some fur traders, suffered from food scarcity and the deadly smallpox epidemic of 1780-81.

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With the removal of Native American traditional stewardship of land and plant communities, once managed areas have reverted to unmanaged landscapes hiding and over time erasing evidence of traditional use areas and practices. Unmanaged landscapes are also more vulnerable to disturbances that can significantly alter plant communities in ways that are detrimental to human and wildlife habitat. As Tribes seek to resume traditional ethnobotanical uses of plants and stewardship of vegetation communities, a corresponding effort is needed to understand landscape vegetation dynamics as influenced by traditional stewardship and frequency of stewardship practices to promote vegetation that is healthy and optimal for ethnobotanical uses. A careful analysis of plant ecology, archaeological sites, and traditional needs is crucial to bringing back dormant traditional knowledge. This presentation will share some insights on this process from Mono Lake, CA.