The Influence of Prehistoric Human-set Fires on Oak- Chestnut Forests in the Southern Appalachians
The Influence of Prehistoric Human-set Fires on Oak- Chestnut Forests in the Southern Appalachians
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作者：
P. Delcourt;H. Delcourt
在阿巴拉契亚南部的三个地点的泥炭沉积物和池塘沉积物中的化石花粉和木炭提供了史前美洲原住民使用火与大约3000到1000年前橡树栗树森林重要性增加之间直接关系的证据。在肯塔基州东南部坎伯兰高原的Cliff Palace Pond，田纳西州东部山脊和山谷的Tuskegee Pond，以及北卡罗来纳州西部蓝岭山脉的Horse Cove Bog，火灾频率的增加与美洲原住民活动的变化相对应，从古代晚期的狩猎和采集，到林地文化时期更久坐的生活方式和本土植物的种植。橡树和栗树的森林在上坡上占主导地位，适应火灾的松树在山脊上生长，适应干扰的硬木侵入了废弃的印度老田野。我们推测，史前美洲原住民对火的使用可能是一种中等规模的干扰，这将提高植物群落边界的生态对比，也将增加整个景观的生物多样性。
Fossil pollen and charcoal in peat deposits and pond sediments from three sites in the southern Appalachians yielded evidence for a direct relationship between prehistoric Native American use of fire and increases in the importance of oak-chestnut forest between about 3,000 and 1,000 years ago. At Cliff Palace Pond on the Cumberland Plateau of southeastern Kentucky, Tuskegee Pond, in the Ridge and Valley of East Tennessee, and Horse Cove Bog in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, increases in fire frequency corresponded with the change in Native American activities from hunting and gathering in the Late Archaic cultural period toward more sedentary lifestyles and cultivation of native plants in the Woodland cultural period. Forests of oak and chestnut became dominant on upper slopes, with fire-adapted pines establishing on ridge tops and disturbance-adapted hardwoods invading abandoned Indian old fields. We speculate that prehistoric Native American use of fire would have been an intermediate-scale disturbance regime that would have heightened ecotonal contrast across plant community boundaries and would also have increased biological diversity across the landscape.