Indigenous forest management and fire control in California prior to European arrival

[wnylib]

4. California is not the only place

where this kind of human land management occurred in pre Columbian North America.

Several years ago as a volunteer on a small dig in National Forest land in northwestern PA, a forest ranger took us volunteers on a tour of the area while the archaeology group was getting set up. He showed us where the Seneca who had lived in the area planted trees along a river bank to prevent erosion. The waterways in North America were highways for the Native population, so they preserved them.

The Seneca and other tribal nations who lived in wooded areas used to use controlled burning of underbrush to eliminate habitats for vermin and other pests, create pathways for foot travel, and encourage habitats for the deer that they hunted. They also selectively chose different species of trees according to their purpose as canoes, firewood, house framing, etc., and according to size and age in order to encourage the growth of trees they relied on. In that way, they shaped the types of forests in their regions.

The land was not the "wild," untended wilderness that Europeans thought it was when they arrived.