[Xmca-l] Re: Pyrodiversity Fire Management - Native Americans of the California Area

[Shannon Brincat]

By way of comparison, similar findings have been made in Australia in Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu: Black seeds, agriculture or accident? and Bill Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth. The latter discusses at length how targeted burnings were used for agricultural purposes.
Dr. Shannon K. Brincat
Griffith University Research FellowRoom -1.09 | Building N72 | Centre for Governance and Public Policy | School of Government and International RelationsNathan Campus | Griffith University | 170 Kessels Road | Nathan | Brisbane | Queensland | 4111 | Australia
Global Discourse, Co-Editorhttp://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rgld20#.Ua53eCsd7pM

New edited series available through PraegerCommunism in the 21st Century (3 Vols.)http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440801259
      From: "Zavala, Miguel" <mizavala@exchange.fullerton.edu>
 To: "xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> 
 Sent: Friday, 5 December 2014, 18:22
 Subject: [Xmca-l] Pyrodiversity Fire Management - Native Americans of the California Area
   
XMCA,

Have you heard of pyrodiversity fire management by Native Americans in the California area?  I found a book written by a UC Berkeley archaeologist that caught my attention and I found a great synthesis of the theory.

What find most striking and fascinating is that, according to this theory, Native Americans of what is today California did not follow the same developmental line as is assumed: hunter-gatherer -> agriculture-settler. Typically, when people think of California Native Americans, they characterize them as hunter-gatherer (as if "stuck" in the Pleistocene period).

Yet, what some scientists are finding is perhaps a competing theory or revision of this narrative; Native Americans developed a distinct type of food management system mediated primarily by pyro-fire practices.  Some argue that these were collective, conducted on a large scale among different groups, perhaps covering 10 – 16% of what today is the geographic area of California.

A nice chapter can be found below; I'm really digging this because in a way it diversifies development—that even large-scale development is not linear (or that "progress" is marked temporally without looking at the geographies of difference). Perhaps Eurocentric research and theories perpetuate master-narratives about how peoples develop across space-time.  To note, I did find some scientists arguing or challenging this theory, so it's important to see the evidence scientists use to support their theory.

Access the Chapter here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.firescience.gov%2Fprojects%2F10-1-09-3%2Fproject%2F10-1-09-3_JONES_CH_09.pdf&ei=S1mBVLm4MMmNyATkvIKIBw&usg=AFQjCNE-TQ4ARzJf1Gbtmd2Vqz1cVwtu7A&bvm=bv.80642063,d.aWw


Miguel Zavala