Cultural Forests in Cross Section: Clear-Cuts Reveal 1,100 Years of Bark Harvesting on Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Abstract

Culturally modified trees (CMTs) provide tangible evidence of long-term forest use by Indigenous peoples. In Northwest Coast cedar forests, this record rarely spans beyond the last three centuries because older bark-harvest scars have been obscured through taphonomic processes such as natural healing and decay. Thus, archaeological visibility and identification are hindered. Here, I recover chronologies of ancient forest harvesting using a post-impact assessment methodology of targeting old-growth clear-cuts in southern Nuu-chah-nulth territories on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Bark-peeling scars are identified and dated in cross section by growth-ring patterns of recently logged trees. Approximately half of all bark-peeling scars are “embedded” inside healing lobes, suggesting at least half of all such CMTs are effectively invisible in standing forests. Features in these post-impact surveys predated those discovered in conventional archaeological impact assessments by a mean of almost a century. Additionally, one of the oldest continually used cultural forests ever recorded, dating to AD 908, is found in the Toquaht Nation traditional territory. These findings uncover measurable frequencies of cedar-bark harvesting generations prior to the contact period and reveal the inadequacy of heritage protections for old-growth cedar stands.

“Their Markers as they Go”: Modified Trees as Waypoints in the Dena’ina Cultural Landscape, Alaska

“…In Alaska, the Tongass National Forest operates under a CMT management plan, requiring inventory and, when possible, protection of CMTs throughout that forest (Mobley and Eldridge 1992;Mobley et al 1990;Mobley 1989;Ream and Saleeby 1987). Despite widening attention, CMTs remain at risk in many areas from industrial forestry, urban expansion, and agricultural clearing ( Earnshaw 2019;Turner et al 2009;Budhwa 2005;Stryd and Feddema 1998).…”