Integrating Traditional and Scientific Knowledge in Place-Based College Curriculum

Despite many calls to connect traditional ecological knowledge to the present, the integration of prehistoric data has limited direct applications in modern practice. This paper reports on an undergraduate class designed to address how traditional knowledge and paleoethnobotanical studies can be useful for formulating conservation and land management strategies for the natural lands on the students’ own campus. The class combines ethnohistoric document searches and ethnographic interviews with macrobotanical and wood charcoal analyses from historic Seneca sites in central New York, with the goal of producing a set of land management recommendations for Ithaca College Natural Lands.