Indigenous impacts on North American Great Plains fire regimes of the past millennium

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Roos, Christopher I., Zedeño, María Nieves, Hollenback, Kacy L., Erlick, Mary M. H.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences 2018
• Subjects: Social Sciences; First Nations
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6094123/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30037995; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805259115

The relative importance of human activities and climate in shaping fire regimes is controversial. In North American grasslands, climate exerts strong top-down influences on fuels. For centuries before the introduction of the horse, Native American and First Nations hunters built and used landscape features on these grasslands to harvest bison en masse. Charcoal layers associated with drivelines indicate that fire was an important part of these hunting practices. Furthermore, correlation of dated fire deposits and climate records indicate that ancient bison hunters burned in response to favorable climate conditions. This study indicates that climate and human activities are not mutually exclusive factors in fire histories; even relatively small groups of hunter-gatherers can enhance climate impacts.