An improved chronology for the microscopic charcoal and pollen records from Anderson Pond, Tennessee, USA

Horn, Sally P.; Boehm, Mathew S.; Ballard, Joanne P.

doi:10.1080/01916122.2018.1509150

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 18 publications

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“…But several key studies of pollen and wood charcoal from the Little Tennessee Valley (Black Pond and Tuskegee Pond [Chapman et al 1982; Delcourt et al 1986]), eastern Kentucky (Cliff Palace Pond [Delcourt et al 1998]), and western North Carolina (Panthertown [Martin 2014], Horse Cove Bog [Delcourt and Delcourt 1997], and Macon County [Fesenmyer and Christensen 2010]) provide a useful overview of major environmental trends in the Southern Appalachians and surrounding regions. Both pollen and charcoal analyses indicate an uptick in fire regimes approximately seven thousand to six thousand years ago in Tennessee and Kentucky, related in part to drier and warmer conditions during the Mid‐Holocene Warming Period (Ballard, Horn, and Li 2016; Gremillion 2015; Horn, Boehm, and Ballard 2019; Krause et al 2019). Although these warmer and drier conditions contributed to the frequency of natural fires, humans almost certainly set fires during this period as a method of manipulating forested areas and maintaining open meadows for both hunting and nut and berry collecting purposes.…”

Section: Changes In the Physical Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

From foraging to farming: Domesticating landscapes in the Midsouth three thousand years ago

Hollenbach

Carmody

2022

Economic Anthropology

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Peoples living in the Eastern Woodlands of North America domesticated a suite of small-seeded crops between five thousand and two thousand years ago, making this region one of roughly ten independent centers of domestication across the globe. In the Southern Appalachian region, foraging peoples began cultivating these native crops around thirty-five hundred years ago (during the Late Archaic period [3000-800 BCE]); by the start of the Early Woodland period (800-200 BCE), they had significantly altered their lifeways and surrounding landscape. This included a change in the physical landscape, as demonstrated by paleoethnobotanical data, with an increase in weedy plants at the expense of bottomland forests. Groups also significantly shifted their lifeways, becoming more sedentary, as evidenced by an increase in storage pits, more substantial structures, and the adoption of ceramic vessels. Storage pits also tend to be smaller, indicating a shift from community-based food procurement and storage to the household level. This may reflect the development of private property and distinctions among households with differential access. Community-based rituals, as evidenced in several caves and rock-shelters in the region, may have been established to strengthen group ties in the face of the broader changing social and physical landscape.

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Section: Changes In the Physical Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

From foraging to farming: Domesticating landscapes in the Midsouth three thousand years ago

Hollenbach

Carmody

2022

Economic Anthropology

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Fire Ecology and Management in Eastern Broadleaf and Appalachian Forests

Arthur

Varner

Lafon

et al. 2021

Managing Forest Ecosystems

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Fire history and dendroecology of Catoctin Mountain, Maryland, USA, with newspaper corroboration

et al. 2021

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Background Our study was designed to reveal a detailed forest fire history at Catoctin Mountain Park, Maryland, USA. We compared the ages of living trees to known fire dates in the dendrochronological record. Seasonality and years of fires in the dendrochronological record were juxtaposed with specific dates of fires recorded in newspapers. Results Twenty-seven pines (Pinus L.) captured 122 fire scars representing 58 distinct fire years between 1702 and 1951. Climate was significantly hotter and drier in the years of burns that affected at least two trees and was wetter two years prior. Thirty-three fires described in local newspapers were reported largely in the spring and fall months (68% between March and June, 32% between September and December). Ninety-one percent of fire scars in our tree-ring chronology had dormant seasonality. The mean fire interval was 5.47 ± 10.14 (SD; standard deviation) yr, and the Weibull median fire interval was 3.22 yr during the entire chronology. The longest fire-free interval was from 1952 to 2018. The size structure of living trees was biased toward smaller black gums (Nyssa sylvatica Marshall) and oaks (Quercus L.) that recruited in the 1930s and 1940s. Most living pitch pines (Pinus rigida Mill) recruited between 1890 and 1910, but a few individuals recruited before the 1850s. Diversity of tree stems smaller than 10 cm diameter at breast height (DBH) was generally lacking; the youngest tree >10 cm DBH in our study area had recruited by 1967. Conclusions The Catoctin Mountains experienced frequent fire during the 1800s and early 1900s. The causes of fires were diverse, including accidental ignitions and purposeful cultural burning for berry (Vaccinium L.) production. The current forest developed during a period of low deer density and after the demise of the charcoal iron industry ended an era of logging. The lack of fire since the 1950s has encouraged the development of a black gum dominated mid- and understory. Management with frequent fire would facilitate pine and oak regeneration.

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An improved chronology for the microscopic charcoal and pollen records from Anderson Pond, Tennessee, USA

Cited by 3 publications

References 18 publications

From foraging to farming: Domesticating landscapes in the Midsouth three thousand years ago

From foraging to farming: Domesticating landscapes in the Midsouth three thousand years ago

Fire Ecology and Management in Eastern Broadleaf and Appalachian Forests

Fire history and dendroecology of Catoctin Mountain, Maryland, USA, with newspaper corroboration

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