Doctoral Dissertation Research: Local Scale Impacts of Native Americans on Fire and Vegetation Dynamics in Northern New York

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This dissertation research examines cultural influences on vegetation within the Saint Lawrence Lowland in upstate New York. The specific focus is on the impacts of aboriginal populations on landscape prior to European settlement and their possible effects on forest dynamics within the broader framework of late-Holocene climate change. Controversies surrounding the extent of Native American practices of woodland burning will be addressed. Sediment cores will be extracted and analyzed on the basis of stratigraphy, pollen, charcoal, and AMS dating of organic macrofossils. This paleocological evidence will be coupled with other archaeological, ethnobotanical, and paleoenvironmental data to reveal vegetation and disturbance histories during known periods of human occupation, including pre-contact, post-abandonment, and post European settlement periods. Results will provide insight into human-environment interrelations as well as providing an empirical basis for the regional archaeology.