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Comment by robbedpeter | Hacker News Reader

Where does evidence of tribes starting burns for plant management come from? All I've ever heard of is fires used in hunting and buffalo runs/ jumps. Anything beyond that implies a level of sophistication in planning and environmental knowledge that seems far fetched at best.

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Here you go: https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/Fi...

There are many other sources as well but this can get you started.

It's a mistake to underestimate the sophistication of other civilizations. Native Americans depended on the forests and grasslands for food. They were very well-informed in matters of land management. The US Forest Service and other have begun (belatedly) to try to understand and incorporate these practices in their own forest management.

It only seems far fetched if you have a preconceived idea of Native peoples being uneducated simpletons, which unfortunately is the prevailing myth. They did indeed have environmental knowledge and planning abilities that allowed them to prosper in a completely different model of land management than what we think of today.

The Wiki article about Native fire management cites a variety of reputable sources. It's a good read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire_in...

They literally domesticated many of the fruits and vegetables that feed you. Corn, Tomatoes, Peppers, Avocado, Beans, Cocoa, Peanuts, Potatoes, Squash, Quinoa, Sweet Potato, list goes on... Clearly had a lot of info on plant management.

It shocked me when I learned a couple of years ago that common vegetables like potatoes actually originated in the Americas. I always thought of them as European foods because of their popularity there and stuff like the Irish potatoe famine.

I do remember learning in elementary school how the natives would plant plants in groups (tall corn shading shorter plants like squash and beans that don't need as much sunlight and to keep away weeds, etc.). But somehow I never connected that these were fundamentally American foods.

it would also be a very beneficial way to plant them since corn and squash are heavy nitrogen feeders, and beans are a nitrogen fixer.

They weren’t dumb? And even if they were, it doesn’t take a genius to notice that where fires have been the land is more accessible, and certain plants and animals thrive - and where a fire hasn’t been for awhile the opposite happens

Here is the National Park Service page, but there are hundreds of papers on it I’m sure [https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/nature/firehistory.htm]. There is extensive archaeological evidence of frequent small scale fires in the Sierras.

You seem to simultaneously be underestimating the sophistication of Native American tribes, while overestimating the amount of sophistication in planning and environmental knowledge required to carry out regular burns to ensure the land supplies food.

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