The tree species composition and history of barrens identified by government land surveyors in southwestern Illinois<sup>1</sup>

Kilburn, Paul D.; Tutterow, Brian; Brugam, Richard B.

doi:10.3159/08-ra-068.1

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Data from the GLO surveys have been used by ecologists in many areas of the United States since the 1920s to reconstruct vegetation patterns that existed prior to Euro-American settlement (e.g., Bourdo 1956, Hutchison 1988, Galatowitsch 1990, Whitney 1994, Whitney and DeCant 2001, Fritschle 2008, Kilburn et al 2009. In the Willamette Valley, Habeck (1961Habeck ( , 1962 was the first to use GLO notes to map historic vegetation for seven townships in the central valley, with a focus on one particular township.…”

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical Vegetation of the Willamette Valley, Oregon, circa 1850

Christy

Alverson

2011

Northwest Science

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Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical Vegetation of the Willamette Valley, Oregon, circa 1850

Christy

Alverson

2011

Northwest Science

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“….” (Nelson et al, 2006: 2534). Studies of Illinois “barrens” (tallgrass prairies along the Illinois river) have ruled out soil as a limiting factor that would have prevented woody vegetation from encroaching on prairies (Kilburn et al, 2009). If neither aridity nor poor soils can explain the presence of prairies in Illinois throughout the Holocene, then anthropogenic fire is the only remaining explanation for their presence, and is also consistent with the ethnographic and historical records of Indigenous communities from this region.…”

Section: A Pyropyrrhic Victory: the Prairie Peninsulamentioning

confidence: 99%

Bison, anthropogenic fire, and the origins of agriculture in eastern North America

Mueller

Spengler

Glenn³

et al. 2020

The Anthropocene Review

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Scholars have argued that plant domestication in eastern North America involved human interactions with floodplain weeds in woodlands that had few other early successional environments. Archeological evidence for plant domestication in this region occurs along the Mississippi river and major tributaries such as the Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas rivers. But this region is also known as the prairie peninsula: a prairie-woodland mosaic that was maintained by anthropogenic fire starting as early as 6000 BP. Contrary to conventional wisdom, recent research has shown that bison were also present in the prairie peninsula throughout the Holocene. Recent reintroductions of bison to tallgrass prairies have allowed ecologists to study the effects of their grazing on this ecosystem for the first time. Like rivers and humans, bison create early successional habitats for annual forbs and grasses, including the progenitors of eastern North American crops, within tallgrass prairies. Our fieldwork has shown that crop progenitors are conspicuous members of plant communities along bison trails and in wallows. We argue that ancient foragers encountered dense, easily harvestable stands of crop progenitors as they moved along bison trails, and that the ecosystems created by bison and anthropogenic fire served as a template for the later agroecosystem of this region. Without denying the importance of human-river interactions highlighted by previous researchers, we suggest that prairies have been ignored as possible loci for domestication, largely because the disturbed, biodiverse tallgrass prairies created by bison have only been recreated in the past three decades after a century of extinction.

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The tree species composition and history of barrens identified by government land surveyors in southwestern Illinois¹

Cited by 2 publications

References 34 publications

Historical Vegetation of the Willamette Valley, Oregon, circa 1850

Historical Vegetation of the Willamette Valley, Oregon, circa 1850

Bison, anthropogenic fire, and the origins of agriculture in eastern North America

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The tree species composition and history of barrens identified by government land surveyors in southwestern Illinois1

Cited by 2 publications

References 34 publications

Historical Vegetation of the Willamette Valley, Oregon, circa 1850

Historical Vegetation of the Willamette Valley, Oregon, circa 1850

Bison, anthropogenic fire, and the origins of agriculture in eastern North America

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The tree species composition and history of barrens identified by government land surveyors in southwestern Illinois¹