Just Accepted
This article has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication. It is in production and has not been edited, so may differ from the final published form.
Compiling historical descriptions of past Indigenous cultural burning: a dataset for the eastern United States
Abstract
Background The extent of past Indigenous cultural burning in the eastern US remains contested. Historical documents (e.g., early histories, journals, and reports) contain descriptions of burning. Scholars have summarized descriptions, but few have compiled them into databases. Aims This paper presents efforts to compile descriptions of past Indigenous burning in the eastern US and early results from mapped descriptions. Methods Utilizing previously-cited descriptions and those discovered from digitized historical texts, the current dataset mapped >250 descriptions of burning in the northeastern US. Most were historical summaries from 19th-century authors, and fewer were firsthand observations. Descriptions are currently shared as a GIS data layer, a tabular file, and an interactive web map. Key results Descriptions correspond with fire-adapted vegetation, and clusters of descriptions suggest burning over large extents (e.g., southern New England, western New York). Estimated dates of burning or initial Euro-American settlement show an east-west succession in Indigenous fire exclusion and replacement with early Euro-American burning. Conclusions Historical descriptions suggest regional-extent influence of Indigenous burning upon past forested ecosystems, but the veracity of descriptions should be carefully evaluated. Implications This project provides a dataset for further study of Indigenous burning and comparison with other methodologies for historical cultural fire reconstruction.
WF24029 Accepted 12 July 2024
© CSIRO 2024
