An Evaluation of the Timing, Development, and Scale of Anthropogenic Burning in Central California

对于研究人员、部落和公共土地管理员来说，了解土著人民如何利用管理做法来增加动植物的多样性和生产力是一个重要的问题。人为或“人为”焚烧是土著人民用来在景观范围内增强动植物群落活力和健康的最有效工具之一。通过点燃频繁、低强度的火灾，土著群体能够在不同的演替阶段创造出生物群落的拼凑，在某些情况下保持了高于自然水平的异质性和生物多样性。考古学为研究人们如何使用火在地方和区域范围内提高景观生产力并评估这些做法在许多世纪以来的结果提供了必要的长期视角。该项目采用了一种创新的生态考古方法，以解决加州古老和历史悠久的狩猎采集社会的景观焚烧做法如何可能增加当地生态系统的产量、生物多样性和可持续性。这项研究将提供新的信息，可用于改善开放空间的管理，增强当地栖息地的生物多样性和活力，调解面对全球变暖的大规模火灾的影响，并教育学生和公众了解土著人民的传统土地利用做法。该项目使用一种方法来研究人为焚烧的时间、演变和规模，该方法汇集了多种类型的证据，以重建古代植被条件，并了解过去数千年来人类如何利用生物资源和改良的景观生物群。为了探索这些主题，研究人员将综合来自土壤和考古遗址的微观植物遗骸的分析；来自过时考古背景的人工制品、动物遗骸和烧焦的宏观植物遗骸的新数据；以及之前发表的关于火生态、古生态、民族历史、植被历史和气候的数据。研究人员还将开发新的方法，通过对人类使用的生物资源进行古代DNA和系统地理研究，将尖端基因研究整合到长期管理实践的研究中。将在加利福尼亚州中部海岸沿线的两个研究区域--雷耶斯国家海岸和阿尼奥新沃州立公园--评估狩猎-采集群体文化实践的长期模式。研究人员包括来自加州大学伯克利分校和圣克鲁斯分校的考古学家、环境科学家和遗传学家。他们将与来自Amah Mutsun部落乐队和Graton牧场印第安人联合会的当地学者，以及国家公园管理局和加州州立公园的土地管理员和考古学家密切合作。该项目将通过提供关于历史生态过程的长期数据，指导土地管理人员的管理决策；向正在重新建立传统管理做法的部落伙伴提供相关信息，作为其正在进行的文化振兴努力的一部分；并为学生和部落学者创造和增加教育和培训机会，从而促进加利福尼亚州公共土地的当前管理。

Understanding how indigenous people employed management practices to increase the diversity and productivity of plants and animals is an important issue for researchers, tribes, and stewards of public land. Human induced or "anthropogenic" burning was one of the most effective tools indigenous people used to enhance the vigor and health of plant and animal communities at the landscape scale. By igniting frequent, low-intensity fires, indigenous groups were able to create patchworks of biotic communities at different stages of succession, which in some cases maintained higher than natural levels of heterogeneity and biodiversity. Archaeology offers the necessary long-term perspective for examining how people used fire to enhance landscape productivity at local and regional scales and for evaluating the outcomes of these practices over many centuries. This project employs an innovative eco-archaeological approach to address how the landscape burning practices of ancient and historic hunter-gatherer societies in California may have augmented the yields, biodiversity, and sustainability of local ecosystems. The research will provide new information that can be used to improve stewardship of open spaces, enhance the biodiversity and the vitality of local habitats, mediate the effects of massive firestorms in the face of global warming, and educate students and members of the public about traditional land use practices of indigenous people.The project examines the timing, evolution, and scale of anthropogenic burning using a methodology that brings together multiple types of evidence to reconstruct ancient vegetation conditions and to understand how humans used biological resources and modified landscape biota over the last several thousand years. To explore these topics, researchers will synthesize new data from the analysis of microscopic plant remains from soils and archaeological sites; artifacts, faunal remains, and charred macroscopic plant remains from dated archaeological contexts; along with previously published data on fire ecology, paleo-ecology, ethnohistory, vegetation history, and climate. Investigators will also develop novel ways to integrate cutting-edge genetic research into the study of long-term management practices through ancient DNA and phylogeographic research on biotic resources used by humans. Long-term patterns in the cultural practices of hunter-gatherer groups will be evaluated in two study areas along the central California coast - Point Reyes National Seashore and Año Nuevo State Park. Researchers include archaeologists, environmental scientists, and geneticists from the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz. They will work in close collaboration with native scholars from the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, along with land stewards and archaeologists from the National Park Service and California State Parks. The project will contribute to the current management of public lands in California by providing long-term data on historical ecological processes that will guide stewardship decisions by land managers; deliver relevant information to tribal partners who are re-instituting traditional management practices as part of their on-going cultural revitalization efforts; and create and enhance educational and training opportunities for both students and tribal scholars.