Compiling historical descriptions of past Indigenous cultural burning: a dataset for the eastern United States

Abstract

Background

The extent of past Indigenous cultural burning in the eastern US remains contested. Historical documents (e.g. early histories, journals, and reports) contain descriptions of burning. Scholars have summarised descriptions, but few have compiled them into databases.

Aims

This paper presents efforts to compile descriptions of past Indigenous burning in the eastern US and early results from mapped descriptions.

Methods

Utilising previously cited descriptions and those discovered from digitised historical texts, the current dataset mapped >250 descriptions of burning in the northeastern US. Most were historical summaries from 19th century authors, and fewer were firsthand observations. Descriptions are currently shared as a GIS data layer, a tabular file, and an interactive web map.

Key results

Descriptions correspond with fire-adapted vegetation, and clusters of descriptions suggest burning over large extents (e.g. southern New England, western New York). Estimated dates of burning or initial Euro-American settlement show an east–west succession in Indigenous fire exclusion and replacement with early Euro-American burning.

Conclusions

Historical descriptions suggest regional-extent influence of Indigenous burning upon past forested ecosystems, but the veracity of descriptions should be carefully evaluated.

Implications

This study provides a dataset for further examination of Indigenous burning and comparison with other methodologies for historical cultural fire reconstruction.