Traditional fire-use, landscape transition, and the legacies of social theory past

Abstract

Fire-use and the scale and character of its effects on landscapes remain hotly debated in the paleoand historical-fire literature. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, anthropology and geography have played important roles in providing theoretical propositions and testable hypotheses for advancing understandings of the ecological role of human-fire-use in landscape histories. This article reviews some of the most salient and persistent theoretical propositions and hypotheses concerning the role of humans in historical fire ecology. The review discusses this history in light of current research agendas, such as those offered by pyrogeography. The review suggests that a more theoretically cognizant historical fire ecology should strive to operationalize transdisciplinary theory capable of addressing the role of human variability in the evolutionary history of landscapes. To facilitate this process, researchers should focus attention on integrating more current human ecology theory into transdisciplinary research agendas.

Native American depopulation, reforestation, and fire regimes in the Southwest United States, 1492–1900 CE

“…The assumption that more (indigenous) people equates to more fire activity (68) fails to accurately characterize these complex conditions. Rather, Early Anthropocene research requires nuanced considerations of fire use and fuel impacts within specific cultural contexts (66,(69)(70)(71). Pan-regional, continental, and hemispheric syntheses of human-fire relationships that rest on simplistic assumptions will continue to be of limited use in evaluating the Early Anthropocene burning hypothesis until they consider the spatial heterogeneity of population histories, fire histories, and land-use behavior.…”

Anthropogenic Fires in West African Landscapes: A Spatially Explicit Model Perspective of Humanized Savannas

“…This model is original in that the human dimension is not a supplementary variable but clearly the core of the model [11], simplified here as density and frequency of fire ignitions. This allowed us to test several scenarios without excluding other important parameters such as land cover, bio-climatic aspects, etc.…”

“…Although anthropogenic fires have been the focus of research in several fields of social science, fire management and fire use practices remain poorly described and under-researched as scholars rarely adequately address the spatial and temporal patterns of local burning regimes [10][11][12]. As such, the role of societies in the production of fire regimes remains less well understood than biophysical aspects of the savanna system [13].…”

Climate change and the migration of a pastoralist people c.3500 cal. years BP inferred from palaeofire and lipid biomarker records in the montane Western Ghats, India

“…The sharp increase in macrocharcoal counts, microcharcoal counts and C/P ratio in the peat layer from ~ 3500 cal yr BP is indicative of an intense, local fire event (Fig 2). Climate is the primary driver of wildfires globally (Flannigan et al 2009; Krawchuk and Moritz 2011) and at local scales such as the Nilgiris (Mondal and Sukumar 2016), with successful ignition and spread of fire from human activity (as opposed to natural causes such as lightning) generally playing a secondary role (Bowman et al 2011) It is entirely possible that an immigrant pastoralist people set fire to the natural grasslands in order to improve the pasture for their livestock, a very common practise around the world since historical times (Johansen 2004; Vuorio et al 2014; Coughlan 2015). Paleo-ecological studies, based on stable carbon isotope ratios discriminating between C4 plants (tropical grasses) and C3 plants (trees, shrubs and other herbs), at this site have clearly pointed to an overall weakening of the monsoon resulting in expansion of grassland during ~5000-2000 cal.…”