Past Human Land Use Research Articles

Holocene fire and occupation in Amazonia: records from two lake districts.

While large-scale pre-Columbian human occupation and ecological disturbance have been demonstrated close to major Amazonian waterways, less is known of sites in terra firme settings. Palaeoecological analyses of two lake districts in central and western Amazonia reveal long histories of occupation and land use. At both locations, human activity was centred on one of the lakes, while the others were either lightly used or unused. These analyses indicate that the scale of human impacts in these terra firme settings is localized and probably strongly influenced by the presence of a permanent open-water body. Evidence is found of forest clearance and cultivation of maize and manioc. These data are directly relevant to the resilience of Amazonian conservation, as they do not support the contention that all of Amazonia is a 'built landscape' and therefore a product of past human land use.

Coastal paleogeography and human land use at Tecolote Canyon, southern California, U.S.A.

AbstractA buried archaeological site at Tecolote Canyon provides an ideal case study for relating past human land use patterns to changes in coastal paleogeography. Postglacial sea level transgression, erosion, and other marine and fluvial processes form the context for examining two deeply buried archaeological components excavated at CA‐SBA‐72. Archaeological shellfish assemblages provide proxy data for evaluating the evolution of local marine environments. Pismo clams dominate shellfish assemblages dated to 5800 cal yr B.P., suggesting the presence of a broad and sandy, high‐energy beach environment. At 5500 cal yr B.P., the almost exclusive use of California mussels by humans signals the development of rocky intertidal habitats. During the late Holocene, estuarine species dominate the marine mollusk assemblages at CA‐SBA‐72, reflecting the development of local estuarine conditions or trade with nearby Goleta Slough villages. The buried components at Tecolote Canyon appear to have served as temporary camps for shellfish harvesting and processing. While general changes in coastal paleogeography and human subsistence have been reconstructed for the Santa Barbara Coast, high resolution ecological data from Tecolote Canyon suggest that Native peoples also adapted to localized and shorter‐term shifts in intertidal habitats, changes not evident in most larger or more disturbed surface sites in the region. Linking these changes with shifts in human land use patterns highlights the interaction between humans and a dynamic coastal system. These data demonstrate the importance of small, buried sites in understanding the full spectrum of human subsistence and settlement choices and local environmental change. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Destroying a path to the past – the loss of culturally scarred trees and change in forest structure along Allmunvägen, in mid-west boreal Sweden

The tradition to blaze trees to mark trails and boundaries is very old in northern Scandinavia. The disappearance of culturally modified trees (i.e. trees with trail blazes) and changes in forest structure along a section of an old bridle trail in boreal Sweden was analyzed using historical maps and forest surveys from the period 1876 to the year 2000. Remaining blazed trees were located during a field study and selected scars were dated. In total 104 scarred living and dead trees were found. The scars originated from the early 1500s to the early 1900s. Analysis of the forest surveys showed that the forest along the trail was dominated by older trees, and that the majority of the scarred trees probably were present, throughout the 19th century. By the mid 20th century logging had begun to affect the tree age along the trail and in 1974 no stands older than 180 years were present. A conservative estimate shows that around 90% of the original blazed trees have vanished. The trail was interpreted as have being lined for centuries with scarred trees which gradually have been destroyed during the 20th century. Culturally modified trees constitute an unique source of information for understanding pattern of old trails as well as of past human land use and movement in the landscape prior to the 20th century. This biological archive have to a large extent been destroyed by forestry activities and it is therefore very important to survey, recount and protect the trees that are still present.

Starch Grains and Environmental Reconstruction: a Modern Test Case from West New Britain, Papua New Guinea

The analysis of starch grains preserved in sediments as a technique for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction is an important new technique, but the limits of inference using this methodology still need to be assessed. A morphological classification of starches extracted from topsoils collected from a range of modern environments in the humid tropical region of Papua New Guinea was therefore conducted to see if discrimination among plots with different vegetation could be achieved. Using an assemblage-based approach, starch grains, initially classified into morphological categories and re-organized into groups according to size/shape frequency distributions, were grouped using principal components analysis. The results correctly identified different types of human land use and provided good discrimination between gardens and forest. These preliminary results show that past human land use can be satisfactorily reconstructed using multivariate analysis of starch grain assemblages with only data on size and morphology to characterize the grains. The findings of the starch study compared favourably with a phytolith analysis of material from the same locations, although the two microfossils target different plant groups. Whereas phytoliths discriminate among different levels of disturbance, starch grains can add information about specific site function, an important consideration especially for regions where plant staples are typically high-starch producers. Combining starch grains and phytoliths in future studies will enhance the accuracy of palaeoenvironmental reconstructions.