Archaeology and today

Question 1

Case Study: Stanely Park 1888

Answer 1

CRM at the time - development to build a road through the park, came upon a midden and Indigenous villages

Question 2

Why is Archaeology relevant to today?

Answer 2

The world we live in is shaped by human activity. Helps us find solutions to present problems.
- natural disasters, water scarcity, food insecurity, climate change, false narratives that perpetuate inequality -> correcting the historical record

Question 3

Wildfires now

Answer 3

Are increasing in frequency and intensity around the world, projected global of fires inc by 50% by end of the century.

Question 4

What are the largest drivers of contemporary wildfires?

Answer 4

Land use and climate change. Deforestation; reducing cloud cover and precipitation. Air picks up moisture from trees and plants -> rain
more dead trees = fuel
increased drought increases the likelihood, strong winds

Question 5

Problem of Wildfires

Answer 5

Ongoing issue in BC and CAD. Northen CAD and Alaska are warming 2x faster than global average. Decimate wildlife + destroys natural habitats. Soil erosion + pollutants = (-) effect watersheds. Fires change soil composition + stability of slopes, which leech into water systems

Question 6

The Artic and Wildfires

Answer 6

The artic is now at risk = vegetation that would normally not burn are now drying out and combusting. Acceleration of growing season length + permafrost thawing = increasing of fuel and flammability.

Question 7

Wildfires + Climate change

Answer 7

□ Wildfires exacerbate C.C by releasing CO2 - 1990s =5, 2000s = 15, 2010s - 56 - impact on human health (smoke) - since 2008 cost BC on avg 256.1 mil/year
□ Fires starting thunderstorms - since 2011 have burned 348,917 hectares in BC avg/year

Question 8

What are the problems with current fire management? How Can archaeology Help?

Answer 8

Current fire management is mostly reactionary vs proactive -> combo of fire science and archaeology and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) a more proactive approach can be taken

Question 9

Archaeology + Oral Histories + wildfires

Answer 9

Can inform us of cultural burning practices.

Question 10

What is cultural burining?

Answer 10

traditional land management used by indigenous peoples all over the world - benefit is reducing wildfires - activates the landscape - could have ceremonial purposes -> was banned as part of colonialism - banned as part of colonial program of oppression and assimilation

Question 11

What does cultural burning do?

Answer 11

slow burning fortify nutrients in the soil - has largely been replaced by fire suppression strategies where the goal is to prevent/stop any fires inc controlled burns BUT
Wildfire fuel accumulates over time
Loss of cultural practices and
disconnection to heritage
Upsets the ecological balance -> pest
infections -> dead trees -> larger more
frequent wildfires

Question 12

Case Study: Wabakwa, New Mexico

Answer 12

1140-1470. Ancestral Pueblo village w up to 1000 rooms - Pueblo - multiroom, multistory houses out of stone/adobe w flat roofs
® Located on a ridge in a ponderosa pine forest in Jemez Mountains = fire-prone environment
® Arch led by Roos reconstructed a fire history for the area to understand the effects of fire management strategies
® Tree ring fire scars record non-lethal fires - dendrochronology can date + understand year of burning + use scars to get fire intensity + spread direction + seasonal timing - 2mya fire scares in petrified wood in AZ
◊ Found 3 different periods
} 1100-1650 - cultural burning typified by small patchy fires of 1-2 trees
} 1696-1880 - low intensity naturally occurring wildfires - Puebloans have left the area + more wildfires but still low intensity -> typically occur every 15-20ys in location
} 1893 last recorded fire + coincided with US fire suppressing policy + livestock grazing + logging

2012 - US Forest Service conducts a prescribed burn
It was a high-intensity fire due to the accumulation of fuel

Question 13

Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL)

Answer 13

can detect the last time minerals certain - were exposed to light or hear of at least 300-500 C deg -
} Grains of quartz in pottery shards record high-intensity fires

Question 14

Modern Wildfire Techniques

Answer 14

fire suppression strategies where the goal is to prevent or stop any fires, including controlled burns but
Wildfire fuel accumulates over time
Loss in cultural practices and disconnection to heritage
Upsets the ecological balance - pest infections - dead trees
Results in larger and more frequent wildfires

Question 15

What did OSL indicate in Wabakwa?

Answer 15

Herds burned in the 2012 prescribed fire
Sherds unburned in 2012 but located in a midden that was exposed to past burning based on association with fire-scarred trees- was a low-intensity fire
Sherds buried in Pueblo rooms and not exposed to any fires
Tree ring samples show that the midden was exposed to at least 8 fires between 1220-1470 and 14 fires between 1724-1873
The only sherds that showed evidence of high fire intensity were those associated with the 2012 prescribed burn

Question 16

What does Archaeology tell us about Wabakwa?

Answer 16

2012 perspired burn was the only high-intensity fire in the area for the last 900 years
Fire suppression policies lead to increases in fuel acclimation and increasing fire intensity
Not all fires are bad fires! Fire suppression policies increase the risk of bad fires aka destructive wildfires

Question 17

What is the significance of the Amazon?

Answer 17

Located in Brazil, more than half of the world’s rainforest. 400 billion trees, 10% of the earths plant/animal species. Amazon’s basin stores 150-200 billion metric tonnes of carbon. 60% of the amazon is in Brazil.

Question 18

How does global warming effect the Amazon?

Answer 18

Global warming is driven by rising CO2 levels due to burning of fossil fuels, wildfires, etc
Food insecurity due to naturally infertile soil found in this ecological zone
Deforestation is driven by slash-and-burn agriculture and other industries like mining (clear-cut the land and then burn the debris and that ash acts like a fertilzer on the top layer - plant crops but since it is just the top layer - only grows for the first couple of years so you do this process again somewhere else
Deforestation - biodiversity
Cattle farming
17% of the amazon rainforest have been lost - the size of France

Question 19

What are Amazonian Dark Earths? (ADE)

Answer 19

aka Terra Preta. Dark more fertile soil found in Amazonian Brazil
High nutrient content: phosphorus, nitrogen, calcium
High organic carbon content -= carbon reservoir sequestering greenhouse gases

Question 20

Amazon Indigenous peoples and ADE

Answer 20

8kya Pre-Columbian Indigenous peoples domesticated plants in the Amazon like peach palm which carries fruit
6kya Indigenous peoples create fertile plots - 5 acres to 1200 acres in size- for farming using ADE

Question 21

Scholars, Indigenous Amazonians and ADE

Answer 21

Scholars argued that ADEs were flood sediments, ash from volcanos or river deposits - naturally built, and Indigenous peoples took advantage of these despots
But…
Winds blow in the wrong direction for the soil to be a volcanic source
ADEs found on bluffs- higher up - 20 meters above the water line - how can they be river deposits or flood sediments
ADEs are found long distances from rivers
ADEs are found in associated with the built environments: mounds, ditches, pits, paths, houses, roads
ADEs contain charcoal, food remains, and pottery sherds

Question 22

ADE’s Are anthropic coils, created by people…

Answer 22

Allows for intensive farming is a sustainable way, rather than slash and burn
Acts as a carbon reservoir sequestering greenhouse gases
Found that ancient sites have as much carbon as the rainforest - can store carbon for centuries
Evidence that large and dense populations of Indigenous people lived in the Amazon and had the capacity and knowledge to sustain themselves

Question 23

Ethnography and ADE

Answer 23

Ethnographic study at the modern village with interviews
Create trash piles of cassava and fish waste - nutrients seep down into the soil from decaying matter that then makes ADE
Spread ash, charcoal, and cassava waste in fields to fertile the ground and create ADEs
Go to archeological sites and plant crops in ADEs there - modern village go to ancient village to plant there

Question 24

Schmidt et al. 2023 Study

Answer 24

analyzed 4 archaeological sites - dating up to 5 kya- 2 historic villages (1973-1983) and 1 modern village - kuikuro 11
Compared soil samples from residential areas to the periphery of the soils - similar patterning and composition for all periods
Residential soil sample = more fertile, periphery and public areas were less
Spatial distribution coincides with the distribution of midden and midden density
Most fertile were organic middens around houses