Native Americans as active and passive promoters of mast and fruit trees in the eastern USA

Abstract

We reviewed literature in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, ethnobotany, palynology and ecology to try to determine the impacts of Native Americans as active and passive promoters of mast (nuts and acorns) and fruit trees prior to European settlement. Mast was a critical resource for carbohydrates and fat calories and at least 30 tree species and genera were used in the diet of Native Americans, the most important being oak ( Quercus), hickory ( Carya) and chestnut ( Castanea), which dominated much of the eastern forest, and walnut ( Juglans) to a lesser extent. Fleshy tree fruits were most accessible in human-disturbed landscapes, and at least 20 fruit- and berry-producing trees were commonly utilized by Native Americans. They regularly used fire and tree girdling as management tools for a multitude of purposes, including land clearing, promotion of favoured mast and fruit trees, vegetation control and pasturage for big-game animals. This latter point also applies to the vast fire-maintained prairie region further west. Native Americans were a much more important ignition source than lightning throughout the eastern USA, except for the extreme Southeast. First-hand accounts often mention mast and fruit trees or orchards in the immediate vicinity of Native American villages and suggest that these trees existed as a direct result of Indian management, including cultivation and planting. We conclude that Native American land-use practices not only had a profound effect on promoting mast and fruit trees but also on the entire historical development of the eastern oak and pine forests, savannas and tall-grass prairies. Although significant climatic change occurred during the Holocene, including the `Mediaeval Warming Period' and the `Little Ice Age', we attribute the multimillennia domination of the eastern biome by prairie grasses, berry-producing shrubs and/or mast trees primarily to regular burning and other forms of management by Indians to meet their gastronomic needs. Otherwise, drier prairie and open woodlands would have converted to closed-canopy forests and more mesic mast trees would have succeeded to more shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive trees that are a significantly inferior dietary resource.

Reconstructing Holocene fire history in a southern Appalachian forest using soil charcoal

“…Nevertheless, the abrupt appearance at 4000 yr BP of regular fires and the marked increase in the summed relative probability of charcoal ages at 1000 years are consistent with historical trends in human activity and fire frequency hypothesized for the southern Appalachians by Delcourt (1986, 1998). Abrams and Nowacki (2008) argue that Native American use of fire to manipulate vegetation in the eastern United States was ubiquitous, driving the composition of plant communities at the regional and biome scales. The palynological record from Horse Cove Bog, North Carolina (located ;20 km from our study area), shows that chestnut, oak, and pine were prevalent in the area surrounding the bog from 4000 yr BP to the present (Delcourt and Delcourt 1997).…”

A Paleoecological Perspective on Wetland Restoration

“…An analogous situation may exist in some areas of eastern North America where pre-European settlement forest composition may bear the legacy of long-term active forest management by Native Americans. Abrams and Nowacki (2008) concluded that Native Americans managed the vast majority of vegetation in the eastern United States directly or indirectly using fire as a management tool. Moreover they posited that Native Americans directly promoted mast (nuts and acorns) and fruit trees by cultivation and planting them in the eastern forests (Abrams and Nowacki 2008 and references therein).…”

Short-term effects of burn season on flowering phenology of savanna plants

“…S. Geological Survey, 1100 N. Mineral Springs Rd, Porter, IN 46304, USA e-mail: npavlovic@usgs.gov resulting in compositional and structural changes (Abrams and Nowacki 2008;Nuzzo 1986;Wolf 2004). Most prescribed burns occur in the late fall (November-December) or late winter seasons (March-April) (Howe 1994a, b).…”