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Cultural Forests in Cross Section: Clear-Cuts Reveal 1,100 Years of Bark Harvesting on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
- Source :
-
American Antiquity . Jul2019, Vol. 84 Issue 3, p516-530. 15p. - Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- Culturally modified trees (CMTs) provide tangible evidence of long-term forest use by Indigenous peoples. In Northwest Coast cedar forests, this record rarely spans beyond the last three centuries because older bark-harvest scars have been obscured through taphonomic processes such as natural healing and decay. Thus, archaeological visibility and identification are hindered. Here, I recover chronologies of ancient forest harvesting using a post-impact assessment methodology of targeting old-growth clear-cuts in southern Nuu-chah-nulth territories on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Bark-peeling scars are identified and dated in cross section by growth-ring patterns of recently logged trees. Approximately half of all bark-peeling scars are “embedded" inside healing lobes, suggesting at least half of all such CMTs are effectively invisible in standing forests. Features in these post-impact surveys predated those discovered in conventional archaeological impact assessments by a mean of almost a century. Additionally, one of the oldest continually used cultural forests ever recorded, dating to AD 908, is found in the Toquaht Nation traditional territory. These findings uncover measurable frequencies of cedar-bark harvesting generations prior to the contact period and reveal the inadequacy of heritage protections for old-growth cedar stands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00027316
- Volume :
- 84
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- American Antiquity
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 137730849
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2019.29