denevan pristine myth aaag 82-3-1992

7/29/2019 Denevan Pristine Myth AAAG 82-3-1992

1/18

The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492Author(s): William M. DenevanReviewed work(s):Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 82, No. 3, The Americasbefore and after 1492: Current Geographical Research (Sep., 1992), pp. 369-385Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American GeographersStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2563351 .

Accessed: 02/11/2011 03:31

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. andAssociation of American Geographers are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,

preserve and extend access toAnnals of the Association of American Geographers.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancishttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aaghttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2563351?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2563351?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aaghttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis


2/18

The PristineMyth:The Landscape of theAmericas n 1492William M. Denevan

DepartmentfGeography, niversityfWisconsin,Madison,WI53706Abstract. he myth ersists hat n 1492 theAmericaswere a sparselypopulated wilder-ness, "a world of barelyperceptible umandisturbance." here is substantial vidence,however, hat he NativeAmericanandscapeoftheearly ixteenthentury as a humanizedlandscape almost everywhere.Populationswere large. Forest composition had beenmodified, rasslands ad been created,wild-life disrupted, nd erosion was severe inplaces. Earthworks,oads, fields, nd settle-mentswere ubiquitous.With ndiandepopu-lation n the wake of Old Worlddisease, theenvironmentecoverednmanyreas.Agoodargument an be made that he humanpres-encewas ess visiblen 1750 han twas n1492.KeyWords: Pristine yth,492,Columbus,NativeAmerican ettlementnd demography, rehistoricNew World, egetationhange, arthworks.

"This s theforest rimeval . . "Evangeline: TaleofAcadie(Longfellow,847).

HATwastheNew World ike t thetime fColumbus?-"Geographys_ itwas," inthewordsof Carl Sauer(1971, ).1 he Admiral imselfpokeof "Ter-restrial aradise," eautifulnd green nd fer-tile, teemingwithbirds,withnakedpeopleliving herewhomhe called "Indians." utwasthe landscapeencounteredn the sixteenthcentury rimarilyristine,irgin, wilderness,nearly mptyfpeople,or was it humanizedlandscape,with he imprintf nativeAmeri-cans being dramatic nd persistent?he for-mer till eemstobe themore ommon iew,but the attermaybe more ccurate.The pristine iew s to a large xtent n in-vention fnineteenth-centuryomanticistnd

primitivist riters such as W.H. Hudson,Cooper,Thoreau, Longfellow,nd Parkman,and painters uch as Catlin nd Church.2hewildernessmagehas sincebecome part f theAmerican eritage, ssociated witha heroicpioneer past in need of preservation"Pyne1982, 7; also see Bowden1992,22). The pris-tineviewwas restated learlyn 1950by JohnBakeless in his book The Eyes ofDiscovery:Therewere notreally erymany f these redmen... the and eemedemptyoinvaders ho camefrom ettledEurope . . that ncient,primeval,undisturbed ilderness . . the streams implyboiledwith ish . . so muchgame . . that nehunterounted thousand nimalsnear singlesalt ick . . thevirgin ilderness fKentucky..the forested lory f primitivemerica13, 201,223,314,407).

But henhementionshat ndian prairie ires. . . cause the often-mentioned oak open-ings .. Great ields fcorn pread nalldirec-tions . . . the Barrens . . withoutforest," ndthat Early hio settlers ound hat hey oulddrive boutthrough he forests ith leds andhorses" 31, 304,308,314).A contradiction?In the ensuingforty ears,scholarship asshown hatndianpopulationsntheAmericaswere substantial,hat heforestshad indeedbeenaltered, hat andscape hangewas com-monplace.Thismessage, however, eems notto have reached hepublicthrough exts, s-says,ortalksby both academics nd popular-izerswhohave responsibilityo knowbetter.3Kirkpatrickale in 1990, in his widely re-ported Conquest of Paradise, maintains that twas the Europeanswho transformedature,following patternetbyColumbus.AlthoughSale's book has somemerit nd he is awareoflarge Indiannumbers nd their mpacts,henonethelesschampionsthe widely-held i-chotomyfthebenign ndian andscapeand

Annals of theAssociation ofAmericanGeographers. 82(3), 1992, pp. 369-385? Copyright992byAssociationfAmericaneographers


3/18

370 Denevanthe devastatedColonial landscape.He over-statesboth.Similarly,eeds ofChange:Christophero-lumbus nd the Columbian egacy, hepopu-larbook published y he Smithsoniannstitu-tion,continues he litanyf NativeAmericanpassivity:pre-Columbianmericawas still he First den,pristine atural ingdom.he native eopleweretransparentnthe andscape, ivings natural le-mentsof the ecosphere. Theirworld, he NewWorld fColumbus,was aworld fbarely ercep-tiblehuman isturbanceShetler 991, 26).To the contrary,he ndian mpactwas neitherbenignnor ocalized ndephemeral, orwereresources lwaysused in a soundecologicalway. The concernhere is with heform ndmagnitude of environmentalmodificationrather hanwithwhether r not ndians ivedin harmony ithnaturewith ustainable ys-tems of resourcemanagement. ometimesthey id; sometimes hey idn't.What hey idwas to changetheir andscape nearly very-where,not otheextent f post-Colonial uro-peans but n important ays hatmerit tten-tion.The evidence s convincing. y1492 ndianactivityhroughoutheAmericas admodifiedforest xtentndcomposition,reated ndex-panded grasslands,ndrearranged icroreliefvia countless rtificialarthworks.griculturalfieldswere common,as were houses andtowns and roads and trails.All of thesehadlocal mpacts n soil, microclimate,ydrology,andwildlife. his s a large opic, orwhich hisessayoffers ut an introductiono theissues,misconceptions,nd residualproblems.Theevidence,piecedtogether rom agueethno-historicalccounts, ield urveys,nd archae-ology, upportshehypothesishat he ndianlandscapeof 1492 had largelyanished ythemid-eighteenthentury, otthrough Euro-pean superimposition,ut becauseofthe de-miseof the native opulation. he landscapeof 1750was more pristine" less humanized)than hat f 1492.IndianNumbers

The size of the native opulationt contactis criticalo ourargument.heprevailingo-sition, recent ne, isthat heAmericas erewell-populated ather han relatively mptylands in 1492. In the words ofthe sixteenth-

centurypanish riest, artolomee lasCasas,whoknew he Indieswell:Allthathas beendiscovered p tothe yearforty-nine 1549]s full fpeople, ike hive fbees, sothat t eems as thoughGod hadplaced ll,or thegreater artof the entirehuman race in thesecountriesLas Casas, in MacNutt 909, 14).LasCasas believed hatmore han 0 millionIndianshad died bythe year1560. Did he ex-aggerate?nthe 1930s nd 1940s,Alfred roe-ber,Angel Rosenblat, nd Julian tewardbe-lieved that he had. The best counts thenavailable ndicated population fbetween -15 million ndians in the Americas.Subse-quently,Carl Sauer,WoodrowBorah,Sher-burneF.Cook, Henry obyns,George Lovell,N. DavidCook, myself,nd others ave rguedforargerstimates.Many cholars owbelievethat herewerebetween 0-100millionndiansin hehemisphereDenevan 992).This onclu-sion is primarilyased on evidenceof rapidearlydeclinesfrom pidemicdisease prior othe first opulation ounts (Lovell,this vol-ume).I haverecentlyuggested NewWorld otalof 53.9 million (Denevan 1992, xxvii).This di-vides nto3.8 million orNorthAmerica, 7.2millionfor Mexico, 5.6 millionfor Central

America, .0 million orthe Caribbean,15.7million or heAndes, nd 8.6 million or ow-landSouthAmerica. hesefiguresre based onmy udgments tothe mostreasonablerecenttribalnd regional stimates. ccepting mar-gin f rror f bout20percent,heNewWorldpopulationwould lie between43-65 million.Future egional evisions re likely o maintainthehemisphericotalwithinhisrange.Otherrecent stimates, one based on totaling e-gional igures,nclude 3 million yWhitmore(1991,483),40 millionbyLord and Burke 1991),40-50 million y Cowley 1991), nd80millionforustLatin merica ySchwerin1991, 0). Inany vent, population etween 0-80 millionis sufficiento dispel any notion of "emptylands." Moreover, he native mpacton thelandscape f 1492reflectedotonly hepopu-lation then but the cumulative ffects f agrowing opulation ver the previous 5,000years rmore.European ntrynto heNew World bruptlyreversedhis rend. he decline fnative mer-icanpopulationswas rapid nd severe,proba-bly the greatestdemographicdisaster ever(Lovell, his olume).Old World iseases were


4/18

The PristineMyth 371theprimaryiller.nmany egions, articularlythe tropical owlands,populations ell by 90percent r more n the firstenturyfteron-tact. Indian populationsestimated) eclinedin Hispaniola rom million n 1492to a fewhundred 0 years ater, r by more than 99percent;in Perufrom9 million n 1520 to670,000 n 1620 92 percent); n the Basin ofMexico from .6 millionn 1519to 180,000 n1607 89 percent); nd inNorth merica rom3.8million n 1492 o1 million n1800 74 per-cent).Anoverall ropfrom3.9 millionn1492to5.6millionn1650 mounts oan 89percentreduction (Denevan 1992, xvii-xxix).Thehuman andscapewas affectedccordingly,l-though here s not lways direct elationshipbetween opulation ensitynd humanmpact(Whitmore,t al. 1990, 7).The replacement f Indiansby Europeansand Africans as initially slowprocess. By1638 therewere onlyabout 30,000EnglishnNorthAmerica Sale 1990, 388),and by1750there were only1.3 millionEuropeans ndslaves Meinig 986, 47).ForLatinAmerican1750,Sainchez-Albornoz1974, ) gives total(includingndians) f12 million. or he hemi-sphere in 1750, the Atlas of WorldPopulationHistory eports 6 millionMcEvedy nd Jones1978, 70). Thus heoverallhemisphericopu-lation n 1750was about30 percent fwhat tmayhave been in 1492.The 1750population,however, was very unevenly distributed,mainlyocated ncertain oastal nd highlandareaswith ittle uropeanizationlsewhere. nNorthAmerican1750, herewereonly mallpockets fsettlementeyond he coastalbelt,stretchingromNew England o northernlor-ida (see maps n Meinig 986,209, 245). Else-where, ombined ndian nd European opu-lationswere sparse, nd environmentalmpactwas relatively inor.Indigenous mprintsn landscapesat thetime f nitial uropean ontact ariedregion-ally n form nd intensity.ollowingreexam-ples forvegetationnd wildlife, griculture,and the built andscape.VegetationThe Eastern orests

The forests f New England, heMidwest,andthe Southeast adbeen disturbed ovary-

ingdegreesby ndian ctivityrior o Europeanoccupation.Agriculturallearing nd burninghad convertedmuch f the forest nto ucces-sional fallow) rowthnd nto emi-permanentgrassyopenings (meadows, barrens,plains,glades, savannas,prairies), ften f consider-able size.4Muchofthe mature orest as char-acterized y an open, herbaceousunderstory,reflectingrequentround ires. The de Sotoexpedition,onsistingfmany eople,a largehorse herd, nd many wine,passed throughten states withoutdifficultyf movement"(Sauer 1971,283).The situation as been de-scribed n detail by MichaelWilliams n hisrecenthistory fAmerican orests: Much ofthe natural' orest emained, ut heforest asnot the vast, silent,unbroken, mpenetrableand dense tangle of trees beloved by manywritersn their omanticccounts f theforestwilderness"1989, 3).5 The resultwasa forestof arge,widely pacedtrees, ew hrubs, ndmuch grass and herbage . . . Selective Indianburninghuspromoted hemosaicquality fNew England cosystems, reating orestsnmany ifferenttates f ecological uccession"(Cronon 983, 9-51).Theextent, requency,nd impact f Indianburningsnotwithoutontroversy.aup 1937)argued hat limatichangerather han ndianburning ould accountforcertain egetationchanges.Emily ussell1983, 6), ssessing re-1700 nformationor he Northeast,oncludedthat:There s no strongvidence hat ndianspurposelyurned arge reas,"but ndians id'increase thefrequencyffires bove the ownumberscaused by lightning," reating nopen forest.But then Russell dds: "In mostareas climate and soil probablyplayed themajorrole ndeterminingheprecolonial or-ests." She regardsndianfires s mainlycci-dental nd"merely" ugmentalo natural ires,and she discounts hereliabilityfmany arlyaccounts fburning.Formannd Russell1983, ) expandthe ar-gumento NorthAmerica ngeneral: regularandwidespreadndianburningDay 1953) is]anunlikely ypothesishat egretfullyasbeenaccepted in the popularliteraturend con-sciousness."Thisconclusion, believe, s un-warrantediven eportsfthe xtent fprehis-toric humanburningn NorthAmerica ndAustraliaLewis1982),and Europe Pattersonand Sassaman1988,130),and by my wn andother bservationsncurrentndian ndpeas-


5/18

372 Denevanant burning n CentralAmerica nd SouthAmerica;when unrestrained,eople burn re-quently ndformany easons.For he North-east, Pattersonnd Sassaman 1988,129) oundthat edimentaryharcoal ccumulations eregreatest here ndian opulations ere great-est.Elsewhere n NorthAmerica, he Southeastismuchmorefire rone han s the Northeast,withhuman gnitions eing specially mport-ant nwinterTaylor 981).The Berkeley eog-rapher nd Indianist rhardRostlund 1957,1960) rgued hat ndian learing nd burningcreated manygrasslandswithinmostly penforest n the so-called "prairiebelt" of Ala-bama. As improbable s it may eem, Lewis(1982)found ndianburning n the subarctic,andDobyns 1981) ntheSonorandesert.Thecharacteristicsnd impacts ffires etby ndi-ans variedregionallynd locallywithdemog-raphy, esourcemanagementechniques, ndenvironment,ut suchfires learly ad differ-entvegetation mpacts handid natural iresowingto differencesnfrequency, egularity,and seasonality.Forest omposition

In NorthAmerica, urning otonly main-tained penforest nd smallmeadowsbut lsoencouragedfire-tolerantnd sun-loving pe-cies. "Fire created conditionsfavorable ostrawberries, lackberries, aspberries, ndothergatherable oods" (Cronon 1983, 51).Other usefulplantswere saved, protected,planted, nd transplanted,uch as Americanchestnut, anada plum,Kentuckyoffee ree,groundnut,nd leek (Day 1953,339-40).Gil-more 1931)described hedispersal f severalnativeplantsby Indians.Mixedstandswereconverted osingle pecies dominants,nclud-ing variouspines and oaks, sequoia, Douglasfir, pruce, nd aspen (M. Williams 989,47-48). The longleaf, lashpine,and scrub oakforests fthe Southeast re almost ertainlynanthropogenicubclimax reated riginallyyIndian burning,replaced in early Colonialtimesbymixedhardwoods,nd maintainednpart byfires et by subsequentfarmersndwoodlotowners Garren 943). Lightningirescan accountfor ome fire-climaxegetation,butIndianburning ouldhave extended nd

maintaineduchvegetationSilver 990, 7-19,59-64).Even in the humid tropics,where naturalfires re rare,human firescan dramaticallyinfluence orestomposition. good exampleisthepineforestsfNicaraguaDenevan1961).Open pine standsoccurboth n the northernhighlandsbelow5,000 eet) nd in the eastern(Miskito)owlands,wherewarm emperaturesand heavy ainfallenerally avormixed ropi-cal montane orestr rainforest.heextensivepineforests fGuatemala nd Mexicoprimarilygrow n cooler and drier,higher levations,where hey re n argepartnatural nd prehu-man Watts ndBradbury982, 9). Pineforestswere definitelyresent n Nicaraguawhen Eu-ropeans arrived.They were found in areaswhere Indian ettlement as substantial, utnot n he asternmountains here ndian en-sitieswere parse.Theeastern oundaryfthehighland ines seems to havemovedwith neastern ettlementrontierhathas fluctuatedback and forth ince prehistory.he pinesoccur odaywhere herehas beenclearing ol-lowedbyregularurningnd the ame s ikelyinthe past. The Nicaraguan inesare fire ol-erant ncemature,ndlargenumbersf eed-lings urvive omaturityf hey an escape fireduringheir irsthree o sevenyears Denevan1961,280). Wheresettlement as been aban-donedand fire eases,mixedhardwoods rad-ually replace pines. This successionis likelysimilar herepinesoccurelsewhere t low el-evationsntropical entral merica,he Carib-bean,and Mexico.Midwest rairiesndTropical avannas

Sauer (1950, 1958, 1975) argued earlyandoftenhat hegreat rasslandsndsavannas fthe NewWorldwereofanthropogenicatherthan limaticrigin,hatrainfall as generallysufficiento support rees. Evennonagricul-tural ndians xpandedwhatmayhave beenpocketsof natural, daphic grasslands t theexpenseofforest. fire urningotheedgeofa grass/forestoundary illpenetratehe drierforestmarginndpushback theedge,evenifthe forest tself s not consumed (Mueller-Dombois1981,164). Grassland an thereforeadvancesignificantlynthewakeof hundredsofyears fannualfires. ightning-setires anhavea similar mpact, ut moreslowlyf ess


6/18

The PristineMyth 373frequent hanhuman ires,s in the wettrop-ics.The thesis f prairiess firenduced, rimar-ily by Indians,has its criticsBorchert 950;Wedel1957), ut herecent eview f he opicbyAnderson 1990, 4),a biologist,oncludesthat most ecologists now believe that theeasternprairies would have mostly isap-peared f thadnotbeenfor he nearly nnualburningof these grasslandsby the NorthAmericanndians," uring he ast ,000years.Acase inpoint s the nineteenth-centurynva-sionofmany rasslands yforestsfterire adbeen suppressed nWisconsin, llinois,Kan-sas, Nebraska, nd elsewhere M. Williams1989, 6).

The arge avannas fSouthAmerica re alsocontroversials toorigin.Much, fnotmost ftheopen vegetationf heOrinocoLlanos, heLlanos de Mojos of Bolivia, he Pantanal fMato Grosso,the Bolivar avannas fColom-bia, theGuayassavannasof coastalEcuador,the campocerrado f centralBrazil, nd thecoastal savannas north f theAmazon, s ofnatural rigin.The vastcampos cerrados c-cupy xtremelyenile, ften oxic xisols.Theseasonally nundated avannas fBolivia, ra-zil, Guayas, nd theOrinocoowe their xis-tence to the intolerancefwoody speciestothe extreme lternationf engthy loodingrwaterloggingnd severedesiccation uringlong dry season. These savannas,however,were and are burnedby ndians nd ranchers,and such fireshave expandedthe savannasinto heforestso an unknown xtent.t snowvery ifficulto determine here natural or-est/savannaoundary nce was located Hillsand Randall 968;Medina1980).Other mall avannashavebeen cut outofthe rainforesty ndian armersndthenmain-tainedby burning.An example s the GranPajonal nthe Andeanfoothillsneast-centralPeru, where dozens of small grasslands(pajonales)have been createdbyCampaIndi-ans-a process learly ocumented y irpho-tos (Scott1978). Pajonaleswere in existencewhen theregionwas first enetratedyFran-ciscanmissionaryxplorersn1733.The impactof human activitys nicelyillustrated y vegetationalhanges n theba-sinsofthe SanJorge, auca,and SinuriversfnorthernColombia. The southernsector,whichwasmainlyavannawhenfirstbserved

in the sixteenth entury,had reverted orainforesty about 1750 followingndiande-cline, nd had been reconvertedo savanna orpasture by 1950 (Gordon 1957, map p. 69).Sauer 1966, 85-88;1976, ) and Bennett1968,53-55)citeearlydescriptionsf numerous a-vannas in Panama in the sixteenth entury.Balboa's first iew of the Pacificwas from'treelessridge," owprobablyorested.ndiansettlementnd agriculturalieldswere com-mon at the time, nd withtheirdecline therainforesteturned.AnthropogenicropicalRainForest

The tropical ain orest as long had a repu-tationforbeing pristine, hethern 1492or1992. There s, however, ncreasing videncethat heforestsfAmazonia nd elsewhere relargely nthropogenicn form nd composi-tion. auer 1958, 05) aidas much ttheNinthPacific cienceCongress n 1957when he chal-lengedthe statement f tropical otanist aulRichardshat, ntil ecently,he ropical orestshavebeen largely ninhabited,nd that rehis-toricpeople had 'no more nfluence n thevegetation han nyoftheother nimal nhab-itants." auer countered hat ndianburning,swiddens, nd manipulation f compositionhad extensively odified he tropical orest."Indeed, nmuchof Amazonia,t sdifficultto find oils hat re not tuddedwith harcoal"(Uhl,et al. 1990,30).Thequestion s,to whatextent oes this vidence reflectndianburn-ing ncontrasto natural lightning)ires, ndwhendid these fires ccur?The role offire ntropical orestcosystems as received onsid-erable ttentionnrecent ears, artlys resultofmajorwildfiresnEastKalimantann1982-83and smallforest iresnthe VenezuelanAma-zon in 1980-84 Goldammer 990). Lightningfires, houghrare nmoist ropical orest, ooccur in driertropicalwoodlands (Mueller-Dombois1981, 49).Thunderstormsith ight-ning remuchmore ommon n theAmazon,compared o North merica, ut nthetropicslightnings usually ssociatedwithheavyrainand noncombustible,verdant vegetation.Hence Indianfiresundoubtedly ccountformost iresnprehistory,ith heirmpact ary-ingwith hedegreeofaridity.

Inthe RioNegro region fthe Colombian-VenezuelanAmazon, oilcharcoal svery orn-


7/18

374 Denevanmon n uplandforests. -14dates range rom6260-250 B.P., well within human times(Saldarriagand West1986).Mostof the char-coal probablyreflects ocal swiddenburns;however, here re some indicationsf forestfires t ntervalsf everal undred ears,mostlikely gnitedby swidden fires. Recentwildfires n the upper Rio Negroregionwere nanormally oist ropical orest3530mm nnualrainfall)hathad experienced everalyears fseveredrought. uch infrequent ild firesnprehistory, long with the more frequentground fires, ould have had significantm-pacts n forestuccession, tructure,nd com-position. xamples rethepineforests f Nic-aragua, mentioned bove,the oak forests fCentral merica, ndthebabassu palmforestsof eastern Brazil.Widespread nd frequentburningmayhavebroughtbout the extinc-tionof some endemic pecies.The Amazonforests a mosaic of differentages, structure,nd composition resultingfrom ocal habitat onditions nd disturbancedynamics Haffer 991). Natural isturbances(treefalls, andslides, iverctivity) avebeenconsiderably ugmentedby humanactivity,particularlyy hiftingultivation.ven smallnumber f swiddenfarmersan have a wide-spread impact n a relativelyhortperiodoftime. ntheRroNegro egion, pecies-diversityrecoveryakes60-80years ndbiomass ecov-ery140-200years Saldarriagand Uhl 1991,312). Brown nd Lugo 1990, ) estimate hattoday boutforty ercent fthetropical orestin LatinAmerica s secondary s a result fhuman learingnd thatmost f heremainderhas had some modificationespite urrentowpopulation ensities. hespeciescompositionofearly tagesof swidden allows iffersromthat f natural apsandmay alter hespeciescomposition f the mature orest n a long-termscale" (Walschburgernd Von Hilde-brand 991, 62).Whilehuman nvironmentaldestructionnAmazonia urrentlys concen-trated long roads, nprehistoricimes ndianactivityn theupland interflueve)orests asmuch less intense but more widespread(Denevan forthcoming).Indianmodificationf tropical orestssnotlimited o clearingand burning.Large ex-pansesof LatinAmerican orests re human-ized forestsnwhich hekinds, umbers, nddistributionsf useful peciesaremanaged y

humanpopulations. oubtless, his ppliestothe past as well. One important echanismnforestmanagementsmanipulationf swiddenfallows sequentialagroforestry)o increaseusefulspecies. The planting, ransplanting,sparing, nd protectionf usefulwild,fallowplants eliminates lear distinctions etweenfield nd fallow Denevan and Padoch 1988).Abandonments a slowprocess,not n event.Gordon 1982,79-98) describes managed re-growth egetationneastern anama,whichhebelievesextendedfromYucatan o northernColombia npre-Europeanimes.TheHuastecofeasternMexico and the YucatecMayahavesimilar orms fforest ardens r forestman-agement Alcorn 981; Gomez-Pompa 987).The Kayapo f theBrazilian mazon ntroduceand/or rotectusefulplants n activityreas("nomadic griculture")djacent o villages rcamp ites, nforagingreas,alongtrails, earfields, nd in artificialorest-moundsn sa-vanna Posey 1985). n managedforests, othannuals and perennials re plantedor trans-planted,whilewild fruit rees are particularlycommon nearly uccessionalgrowth.Weed-ingbyhandwaspotentially ore elective hanindiscriminateeedingby machete Gordon1982, 57-61). Muchdispersalof edible plantseeds is unintentionalia defecationnd spit-ting ut.TheeconomicbotanistWilliamBalee (1987,1989) peaksof"cultural"r "anthropogenic"forestsnAmazonianwhich pecieshavebeenmanipulated,ftenwithout reductionnnat-ural iversity.hese nclude pecialized orests(babassu, Brazilnuts, ianas,palms,bamboo),which urrently ake up at least11.8percent(measured)of the totaluplandforest n theBrazilian mazonBalee 1989, 4).Clear ndica-tions of past disturbance re the extensivezones of terra reta blackearth),which ccuralong heedgesofthe arge loodplainsswellas in the uplands Balee 1989, 10-12; Smith1980).These soils,withdepthsto 50 cm ormore, ontain harcoal nd cultural astefromprehistoricurningnd settlement. ivenhighcarbon, nitrogen, alcium,and phosphoruscontent,errareta oils havea distinctiveeg-etationand are attractive o farmers. alee(1989, 14) concludes that"large portions fAmazonian orests ppear to exhibit he con-tinuing ffects f past human nterference."The same argument as been made for the


8/18

The PristineMyth 375Maya owlandsGomez-Pompa,tal. 1987) ndPanama Gordon 1982).There are no virgintropical orestsoday,norwerethere n 1492.

WildlifeThe ndigenous mpact n wildlifesequivo-cal. The thesis hat overkill" unting ausedtheextinctionf ome argemammalsnNorthAmerica uring he atePleistocene, s well ssubsequent ocalandregional epletionsMar-tin 978, 67-72), emainsontroversial.y hetime fthearrival fCortez n1519, hedensepopulationsfCentralMexico pparentlyadgreatly educedthe number f large game,givenreports hat they at any iving hing"(Cook and Borah1971-79, 3) 135, 140). InAmazonia,ocalgamedepletionpparentlyn-creaseswithvillage ize and durationGood1987). Hunting rocedures n manyregionsseem,however, o have allowedforrecoverybecause of the"resting"fhuntingones in-tentionallyr as a result fshiftingfvillagesites.On the otherhand,forest isturbancen-creased herbaceousforage nd edge effect,and hence the numbersof some animals(Thompson nd Smith 970,261-64). Indianscreated dealhabitats or host fwildlifepe-cies . . . exactly those species whose abun-dance so impressed English olonists: elk,deer, beaver,hare,porcupine, urkey,uail,ruffed rouse, nd so on" (Cronon 983,51).White-tailed eer, peccary,birds, nd othergame increases n swiddens and fallows nYucatan ndPanamaGreenberg 991;Gordon1982, 96-112; Bennett 968). Rostlund1960,407)believed hat he creation fgrassypen-ings astof theMississippi xtended he rangeof the bison,whose numbersncreasedwithIndian depopulation and reduced huntingpressure between 1540-1700,and subse-quently eclinedunderWhitepressure.AgricultureFields ndAssociated eatures

To observers n the sixteenthentury,hemost isiblemanifestationf theNativeAmer-ican andscapemusthavebeen thecultivatedfields,whichwere concentratedroundvil-

lages and houses. Most fields re ephemeral,their resence uickly rasedwhenfarmers i-grateor die, butthere re many ye-witnessaccountsof thegreat xtent f Indianfields.On Hispaniola, as Casas and Oviedoreportedindividual ieldswith housands fmontones(Sturtevant961,73). These weremanioc ndsweetpotatomounds -4m incircumference,ofwhich pparentlyone have urvived.ntheLlanosde Mojos in Bolivia, hefirst xplorersmentionedercheles, r corncribs n pilings,numbering p to 700 in a single field,eachholding 0-45 bushelsof food Denevan 1966,98). Innorthern loridan1539,Hernando eSoto'sarmy assedthrough umerous ields fmaize,beans, ndsquash, heirmain ourceofprovisions; n one sector,"greatfields . .were spread out as far s the eye could seeacrosstwo eaguesof theplain" Garcilaso ela Vega 1980, 2) 182; also see Dobyns1983,135-46).It is difficulto obtain a reliableoverviewfrom uch descriptions. side frompossibleexaggeration,uropeans endednot to writeabout fieldsize, production, r technology.More useful re variousforms f relict ieldsand field eatures hat ersist or enturiesndcan stillbe recognized,measured, nd exca-vatedtoday.These extant eatures,ncludingterraces,rrigationorks, aised ields,unkenfields, rainageditches,dams, reservoirs,i-versionwalls, nd field ordersnumbernthemillions nd are distributedhroughoutheAmericasDenevan 980;see also Doolittle ndWhitmorendTurner,his olume).For xam-ple, about 500,000 ha of abandoned raisedfieldsurviventheSanJorge asin f northernColombia Plazasand Falchetti987, 85),andat least600,000 a ofterracing, ostlyfpre-historic rigin, ccur in the PeruvianAndes(Denevan1988, 0).There re19,000ha ofvis-ible raisedfieldsn ustthesustainingreaofTiwanakutLakeTiticacaKolata 991, 09) ndtherewere about 12,000 ha of chinampas(raised fields)around the Aztec capital ofTenochtitlanSanders, t al. 1979,390).Com-plex canalsystemsn the north oast of Peruandinthe Salt River alleynArizonarrigatedmore land in prehistoryhan is cultivatedtoday.About175 sites of Indiangardenbeds,up to severalhundred creseach, have beenreported n Wisconsin Gartner 992).Thesevarious emnant ields robably epresentess


9/18

376 Denevanthan 25 percent fwhat once existed,mostbeingburiedunder ediment r destroyed yerosion, urbanization, lowing, nd bulldoz-ing. On theotherhand, n inadequate fforthas been made to searchfor ncient ields.Erosion

The size of nativepopulations, ssociateddeforestation,ndprolonged ntensivegricul-ture ed to severe anddegradationn someregions. ucha landscapewas that f CentralMexico,whereby 1519food production res-suresmayhavebrought heAztec ivilizationto thevergeofcollapseeven withoutpanishinterventionCook and Borah 971-79 3),129-76).6There s good evidence that everesoilerosion was alreadywidespread, ather hanjusttheresult fsubsequentEuropean low-ing, ivestock,nd deforestation.ook exam-ined the association etween rosional ever-ity gullies,barrancas, and and siltdeposits,and sheet rosion) ndpre-Spanishopulationdensityor proximityo prehistoricndiantowns.He concluded hat an importantycleof erosion nddepositionhereforeccompa-nied ntensiveanduseby hugeprimitiveop-ulations n centralMexico,and had gone fartoward he devastation fthecountryeforethewhiteman rrived"Cook 1949, 6).BarbaraWilliams1972, 18) describeswide-spread epetate,n induratedubstrate orma-tionexposed bysheeterosionresultingromprehistoricgriculture,s "one of thedomi-nant urfacematerialsn heValley fMexico."On the otherhand, anthropologist elville(1990, 7) argues hat oil erosion ntheVallede Mezquital, ustnorth ftheValley f Mex-ico,was the result fovergrazing y Spanishlivestock tartingefore 600: "there san al-most otal ack ofevidence of environmentaldegradation efore he last threedecades ofthe sixteenthentury."heButzers, owever,inanexaminationfSpanish andgrants, raz-ing patterns,nd soilandvegetation cology,found thattherewas only ight ntrusion fSpanish livestock sheep and cattle weremovedfrequently)nto hesoutheasternajronearMezquitaluntil fter 590 and that nydegradationn1590was "as much matter flong-termndian and use as itwas ofSpanishintrusion"Butzer nd Butzerforthcoming).The relative olesof Indian nd early panish

impacts n Mexico stillneed resolution; othwere clearly ignificantut varied n time ndplace. Under the Spaniards, however, venwith greatly educed population, he land-scape in Mexicogenerally id not recover ueto acceleratingmpacts rom ntroducedheepand cattle.7The Built LandscapeSettlement

TheSpaniards nd other uropeanswere m-pressedby argeflourishingndian ities uchas Tenochtitlan, uito, and Cuzco, and theytooknoteoftheextensiveuins folder, ban-doned cities such as Cahokia, Teotihuacan,Tikal, hanChan, nd TiwanakuHardoy 968).Most f hese ities ontainedmore han 0,000people. Less notable, r possiblymore takenforgranted,was rural ettlement-small il-lagesof a few housand r a fewhundred eo-ple, hamlets f a few families, nd dispersedfarmsteads. he numbersand locations ofmuchofthis ettlement illneverbe known.With he rapiddecline of nativepopulations,the bandonmentfhousesand entire illagesand thedecayofperishablematerialsuicklyobscuredsites, specially n thetropicalow-lands.We do have some early istingsfvillages,especially orMexico and Peru.Elsewhere,r-chaeologystelling s more han thnohistory.Afternitiallyocusingn large emple nd ad-ministrativeenters, rchaeologistsre now x-amininguralustainingreas,with emarkableresults. ee, for xample, anders t al. (1979)on theBasin fMexico,Culbert ndRice 1991)on theMaya lowlands, nd Fowler 1989)onCahokia n llinois. vidence fhuman ccupa-tionfor the artistic antaremCulturephase(Tapajos chiefdom) n the lowerAmazonex-tends over thousands of square kilometers,withlarge nucleated settlementsRoosevelt1991, 01-02).Muchof therural recontactettlement assemi-dispersed rancherias),particularlyndenselypopulatedregions f Mexico andtheAndes,probably eflectingoorfood ransportefficiency.ouses wereboth ingle-familyndcommunalpueblos,Huron ong houses,Am-azon malocas). Constructionwas of stone,


10/18

The PristineMyth 377earth, dobe, daub and wattle, rass, hides,brush, ndbark.Muchofthedispersed ettle-mentnot destroyed ydepopulation as con-centrated by the Spaniards into compactgrid/plaza tyle new towns congregaciones,reducciones) or dministrativeurposes.Mounds

JamesParsons (1985, 161) has suggestedthat:"Anapparent maniaforearthmoving,landscape ngineeringna grand cale runs sa thread hroughmuchofNewWorldprehis-tory." arge uantities f both arth nd stoneweretransferredo createvariousraised ndsunken features, uch as agriculturaland-forms, ettlementnd ritualmounds, andcauseways.Moundsofdifferenthapes and sizes wereconstructedhroughoutheAmericas or em-ples, burials, ettlement,nd as effigies. hestone pyramids f Mexico and theAndes arewell known,but equal monuments f earthwere built ntheAmazon, heMidwestU.S.,and elsewhere. heMississippian eriod om-plex of 104mounds at Cahokianear East St.Louis supported30,000 people; the largest,Monk's Mound, s currently0.5m high ndcovers6.9 ha. (Fowler 989,90, 192). Cahokiawas the largest ettlement orth f the RfoGrandeuntil urpassedbyNewYorkCity n1775.Anearly urveystimated at east 0,000conical, inear,ndeffigy ounds" nWiscon-sin (Stout 911,24). Overall, heremusthavebeen several hundred thousand artificialmounds ntheMidwest nd South. De Sotodescribedsuch features till n use in 1539(Silverberg 968,7). Thousands f settlementand othermoundsdot the savanna andscapeof Mojos in Bolivia Denevan 1966).At themouth ftheAmazonon Marajo sland, necomplex fforty abitation ounds ontainedmore han 0,000 eople; oneof hesemoundsis 20 m highwhileanother s 90 ha in area(Roosevelt 991, 1, 38).Not all of the various arthworkscatteredover the Americaswere in use in1492.Manyhad been long abandoned,buttheyconsti-tuted conspicuous lement f the andscapeof 1492 and some are stillprominent.oubt-less,many emaino bediscovered,nd othersremain nrecognized s human rprehistoricfeatures.

Roads,Causeways, nd TrailsLarge umbers fpeople and settlementse-cessitated xtensive ystems f overland ravelroutes o facilitatedministration,rade,war-fare, and social interaction Hyslop 1984;Trombold 991). Only hintsof their formerprominenceurvive.Manywere simple racesacrossdeserts r narrow aths ut nto orests.A suggestion s to the importancefAmazonforest rails s the existence of more than500 kmof trailmaintained y a singleKayapovillage oday Posey 1985, 149). Some prehis-toric ootpaths ereso intensivelysed for olong hat heywerencisednto heground ndare stilldetectable, s has recently een de-

scribed n Costa Rica Sheets nd Sever1991).Improvedroads, at times stone-lined nddrained,wereconstructedvergreat istancesinthe realms fthehigh ivilizations.heIncaroad network s estimated o have measuredabout40,000km, xtendingromouthern o-lombia o central hile Hyslop 984, 24). Pre-historicausewaysraisedroads)werebuilt nthe tropical owlands (Denevan 1991); oneMaya causeway s 100km ong, nd there remore han ,600km fcausewaysntheLlanosdeMojos.Humboldt eportedargeprehistoriccauseways n the Orinoco Llanos.FerdinandColumbusdescribedroadson PuertoRicoin1493.Gasparde Carvajal, raveling owntheAmazonwithOrellana n1541,reported high-ways" penetratinghe forest rom iver ankvillages. oseph eAcosta 1880, 1) 171) n1590said thatbetweenPeruand Brazil, herewere"waies as much beaten as those betwixtSalamanca nd Valladolid." rehistoricoads nChaco Canyon,NewMexicoare described nTrombold 1991). Some routeswere so wellestablished nd located that theyhave re-mainedroadsto thisday.Recovery

A strong ase can be made forsignificantenvironmentalecoverynd reduction f cul-tural eatures y he ateeighteenthenturysa result f Indianpopulationdecline. HenryThoreau 1949, 32-37)believed,based on hisreading f WilliamWood, that the New En-gland forests f 1633 were moreopen, morepark-like,ithmoreberries nd morewildlife,


11/18

378 DenevanthanThoreau bserved n1855.Cronon 1983,108), Pyne 1982, 1), Silver 1990, 04),Martin(1978, 81-82), nd Williams1989, 9) all main-tain that the eastern forests ecovered ndfilled n s a result f ndian epopulation, ieldabandonment,and reduction n burning.Whileprobably orrect, hesewriters ivefewspecific examples, so further esearch isneeded. The sixteenth-centuryields nd sa-vannasof Colombia nd Central merica lsohad reverted o forestwithin 50yearsafterabandonment Parsons1975, 30-31; Bennett1968, 54). On his fourth oyage n 1502-03,Columbus ailed alongthe northoastof Pan-ama (Veragua).His son Ferdinand escribedlandswhichwerewell-peopled,ull fhouses,withmany ields, nd open with ew rees. ncontrast,n 1681 LionelWafer oundmostofthe Caribbean oast of Panama orest overedand unpopulated.On the Pacific ide intheeighteenth entury, avannaswere seldommentioned; he main economic activity asthe oggingftropical edar, tree hat rowson the sites of abandonedfields nd otherdisturbancesSauer 1966,132-33, 87-88).Anearlieroscillation rom orest estructionorecovery in the Yucatan is instructive.Whitmore, t al. (1990,35) estimate hat heMaya had modified 5 percent ftheenviron-ment by A.D. 800, and that following heMayan ollapse,forest ecoverynthecentrallowlands was nearly complete when theSpaniards rrived.The pace of forest egeneration, owever,varied across the New World.Much of thesoutheasternU.S. remained reeless n the1750saccording o Rostlund 1957, 08, 409).He notes hat hetangled rush hat nsnarledthe "Wilderness ampaign f 1864 nVirginiaoccupiedthe same landas did CaptainJohnSmith'sopen groveswithmuchgood groundbetweenwithoutny hrubs"' n1624; vegeta-tion had only partially ecoveredover 240years.The Kentuckyarrensn contrast erelargelyeforestedy heearly ineteenthen-tury Sauer 1963,30). TheAlabamaBlackBeltvegetationwas describedbyWilliam artraminthe 1770s s a mixture fforestndgrassyplains, but bythe nineteenth entury,herewas only10 percentprairie nd even less insome counties Rostlund 957, 393, 401-03).Sectionsof coastal forestsneverrecovered,given olonist ressures, ut Sale's (1990, 91)claim hat theEnglish ere wellalong n the

process of eliminating he ancient EasternwoodlandsfromMaine to the Mississippi" nthefirstne hundred ears, s an exaggeration.Wildlife lso partially ecovered n easternNorth mericawithreducedhunting ressurefrom ndians;however, his s also a story etto be worked ut. Thewhite-tailedeer appar-ently eclined nnumbers, robably eflectingreforestationluscompetition rom ivestock.Commercial unting as a factor n the coast,with 0,000 eer skins eing hipped utyearlyfrom harleston y1730 Silver 990, 2). Mas-sachusettsnacted closed season on deer asearly s 1694, nd n1718 herewas a three-yearmoratoriumn deer hunting Cronon 1983,100). Sale (1990, 90) believes hatbeaverweredepleted ntheNortheast y 1640. Otherfurbearers,game birds, lk, buffalo,nd carni-voreswerealso targeted ywhitehunters, utmuchgame probablywas in the process ofrecoverynmany astern reas until generalreversal fter 700-50.As agriculturalields hangedto scrub andforest, arthworks ere grownover.All theraisedfields n Yucatan and SouthAmericawereabandoned.A large portion f theagri-cultural erraces n the Americaswere aban-doned in the earlycolonial period (Donkin1979, 5-38). ntheColca Valley f Peru,mea-surement n air photosindicates 1 percentterrace bandonmentDenevan1988, 8).Soci-eties vanished or declined everywherendwholevillageswith hem.Thedegreetowhichsettlementeatures ereswallowed p byveg-etation, ediment,nd erosion s indicated ythedifficultyffindinghem oday.MachuPic-chu,a lateprehistoricite,was not rediscov-ereduntil 911.The renewalof human mpact lso variedregionally,omingwith heRevolutionaryarin NorthAmerica,withthe rubberboom inAmazonia,nd with heexpansion f coffeensouthern razil1840-1930). he swamp andsof GulfCoast MexicoandtheGuayasBasinofEcuador emained ostile nvironmentso Eu-ropeansuntilwell nto he nineteenthenturyor later Siemens1990;Mathewson 987).Onthe otherhand, HighlandMexico-Guatemalaand theAndes,with reaterndian urvivalndwith heestablishmentf haciendas nd inten-sive mining,how less evidenceof environ-mental ecovery.imilarly,ndian ields ntheCaribbeanwererapidly eplacedby Europeanlivestockndsugarplantationystems,nhibit-


12/18

The PristineMyth 379ing ny ufficientecovery.he same s true fthesugar one of coastalBrazil.Conclusions

By 492, ndian ctivityad modifiedegeta-tion nd wildlife,ausederosion, nd createdearthworks,oads,and settlementshrough-outtheAmericas. hismay eobvious, ut hehumanmprintas muchmoreubiquitousndenduringhan susually ealized. he historicalevidence s ample,as are data fromurvivingearthworksndarchaeology.ndmuch an beinferred rom present humanimpacts.Theweight f evidence uggests hat ndian opu-lationswere arge,notonly nMexico ndtheAndes,butalso inseemingly nattractiveab-itats uch as the rainforestsfAmazonia, heswamps fMojos,and the deserts fArizona.Clearly,he mosthumanizedandscapes ftheAmericas xistednthosehighland egionswherepeoplewere themostnumerous.Herewerethe large tates, haracterizedyurbancenters, oadsystems,ntensivegriculture,dispersed utrelativelyense rural ettlementpattern f hamlets nd farmsteads,nd wide-spread vegetation nd soil modificationndwildlife epletion.Therewereother, mallerregions hat hared ome of thesecharacteris-tics, uch s thePueblo ands n he outhwest-ernU.S., the Sabana de Bogota n highlandColombia, nd the central mazon loodplain,wherebuilt andscapeswere locally ramaticand arestill bservable. inally,herewere heimmense rasslands, eserts,mountains,ndforestslsewhere,withpopulations hatweresparse or moderate,with andscape mpactsthatmostly ereephemeralr not bviousbutneverthelessignificant,articularlyorvege-tation nd wildlife,s in Amazonia nd thenortheastern.S. Inaddition,andscapes romthemoredistantast urvivedo1492 nd evento1992, uchas thoseofthe rrigationtates fnorth coast Peru, the Classic Maya, theMississippian mound builders, and theTiwanaku mpiref LakeTiticaca.This ssayhas ranged ver hehemisphere,an enormousarea, making generalizationsabout andprovidingxamples f Indian and-scape transformations of 1492.Examples fsome of the survivingultural eatures reshown n Figure . Ideally, seriesof hemi-sphericmaps shouldbe provided o portray

the spatialpatterns f the differentypes ofimpacts nd cultural eatures, utsuch mapsare not feasiblenorwould theybe accurategivenpresent nowledge. here re a fewrel-evantregionalmaps,however, hat an be re-ferred o.For xample, ee Butzer 1990, 3,45)for ndian settlementtructures/moundsndsubsistence atternsnthe U.S.; Donkin 1979,23) foragriculturalerracing; oolittle 1990,109)for anal rrigationn Mexico; Parsons ndDenevan 1967) or aised ields n SouthAmer-ica; Trombold 1991) for various road net-works;Hyslop 1984,4) for the Inca roads;Hardoy 1968, 9) for hemost ntenseurban-izationn Latin merica; nd Gordon1957, 9)foranthropogenicavannas n northern o-lombia.Thepristinemyth annotbe laidat the feetof Columbus.While he spoke of "Paradise,"hiswas clearly humanized aradise.He de-scribedHispaniola nd Tortuga s densely op-ulated and "completely ultivated ike thecountrysideround Cordoba" (Colon 1976,165). He also noted hat the slands re not othickly ooded as to be impassable," uggest-ing openingsfrom learing nd burning Co-lumbus 961, ).The roots fthepristinemythie npartwithearly bservers naware fhuman mpactshatmaybe obviousto scholars oday, articularlyforvegetation nd wildlife.8 uteven manyearthworksuch as raisedfieldshave onlyre-cently een discoveredDenevan 1966; 1980).Equallymportant, ost f our eyewitness e-scriptionsfwilderness ndemptyands omefrom later ime,particularly750-1850wheninteriorandsbegan to be explored nd occu-pied byEuropeans. y 650, ndian opulationsin thehemisphere ad been reducedby bout90 percent,whileby1750Europeannumberswere not yetsubstantial nd settlement adonlybegunto expand.As a result, ieldshadbeen abandoned,while ettlementsanished,forestsecovered,ndsavannas etreated.helandscapedid appearto be a sparsely opu-latedwilderness.his sthe mage onveyed yParkmannthe nineteenthentury,akelessn1950, nd Shetlers recentlys 1991.Therewassome European mpact, fcourse,but it waslocalized.After750and especially fter 850,populations reatlyxpanded,resourcesweremore intensivelyxploited, and Europeanmodificationf the environmentccelerated,continuingo thepresent.


13/18

380 Denevan. . .. .-.'.!.. .q "-4 4 !!.-!'!'. . - i , A `I 1. I I , - .i ,. . . . . ' ' " - - '- :. .I - .' - : : , ' -- - 1-1.,, : ."- -, . . -,10 0 8 0 ,.. , -;,-.- -.,,:,i0t6 -.,,-,.,,,,,,,.,,'..1,- I ,"..-,".: - ...-,.-", -- - C!I.- -1.... .:'-:".'! -'.'.','Z- "..,-1.. - ::v: . .. '....- i':i,,!:i-"'"... ol I'..-% ....-.:.. : ::i:: . :: ..."!:.:' :... :;! ... il"i!:ii:- .. I- .... :1.:...:. %...'. ..'...... ..... . : :'.....:. ... .... . .... ..- . ... :!..... -- " I .......V...:: :":. : :: :1:. ::. :.'.-. ..... .., . . !: .. 1' . . v : 1 .1! :. II .--401....-/.] .::':: -/ 11 Approximateimit fagriculture, -. . :: .---' - - I..... ':- -\X.. 1.!!z...-'-'----'-- II---X'. -.' "',",.E.,'.i,':: -,A::_ :--:' ,:.: .. ,_::.:'' :., .': 0A- %':0Major urbancenter, .. . .- ; ::'::''.:': '- .. :. ..... .,. .. ..'..:. . .. : :!...: ::,.: : ,.,.,..4:... '- - -:' ,:...:.'.: ... . ... .. . A M unds, pyramds .... : :..:::-.:::'::b.::: 4 A , ---: . i!.:!.: ''i :':'. .. ' '::.1.. . ' ,:..%..:.1 ...:....!:.,..;!!..''....::!:/. . : - , '': ..: :::..4% Terrace zones (mostly rrigated) -'. - . . /::!::: ',!:!]:::,.' -.....:.:::z!:.' ;. ..'-;.-1-- .' ,A, '' - , -;::,:: ...1.- -, -- - -i' - -,-: , ...,:.::'"4,,- .I -- - ," I-,--4K!--- -,-,-, ", ",---- . .-'V, -,,---"' .: 11-. . ......... rrigation: ---,-. -" --:,,-----':!..-: -,--- .-:I, - . - ,I."-' - '-.'-"-,,""!'. -,. - ,-',.'::.'..":--, "....''.-----.......''... _...... . . "'.' :. . - I 1 -- " I," . . . -: . : : . , I P - ! i - -. , . "! " " !x : i - ' " !, !': :'.''-:.:.......: I:",'::::,.:!:..:!::i:!:::.:::":::.::f::.::,.:.;::XRaised fields:.: . :...: . ....II..... . :..:...::]Y. , -.,.':::..::..: . :A.:':.:.::... .:::....-:..! :::!!:::!.;.;!x ' ,:,::: : : ! : . . !! . . 4 1 :. . : . : . " - ' ,i . - . . - . ' : . , ..A.1 %..-'..:,:::.j:. i!j!!!!' :!..:': . . . ...' : n ."...I:'":.'..-_';:-'..P ....-. i'!!!::RRoads, causewaysv - - I'. ::.'. - . - '-. . - . :!:.i:::.'-' - - : " - - -, ' -- - - :, ,I ,..-.:7 g:;: " I.' .: ..:-:,,:,: I'1111,111,'.",.'.,- -, -. ,.I":;I'll, ..""1- .' : E.. j -','-,j" 1%.. ;"---, ,-1--.II.1 I- ------'-.-,-I -I 1-...'-' -I'- 'I. -... -, Z- --I: ,-- ',--': ,: . %-"' . ."', . .: , -. -, ,.. .". ..I.-.. ...I: -,:'-.::'qi, i,.%,-. .-.. .- ..I- vi!:,...I.::'.' , ::::.-! -111-i ::!:i..;:i. .i:.:;iY"':.. . .........'.',I ..'' .. 0800 1600 km4,- . - . - . : . : :, : :- , :, XiI, , -i j 111,, :1 : . . - -! :!. . . . . , I- .. . .1 . " " . -- ' ib :! .1. . '- - " . ,. . . I . . . ! - : ! . . X.. .. ..... ......:;!..: !::.:..:." ....I .: '....-. .::1.!.. ..::. .... I. ..:. ':!::: i.. !:: I I I I I I I I I..:. z ,: :. . ...... . -:!:..'...:::.....:::.- :.'.. .: 11:,.,:.. .... ....: ..,.. ,:!IV. ......J..R 4: .....: !.. ..:. ::'::::, ,.- ] 1: :.. ......... .. , ... .:: .:;:.! ':.. .; .:: .1.:..:1. ....-I:.1 ::: J:!;.'.:: I.:.'-.. . . .....'. I . ,: .".::!: J.. . -':..... ..: : ,.. .. ....... ..::: :.: . ../ !:!:::;;:.:i:...!ii:!::!.,:.. :.. ........ : . .%. . :!'. 1.. " ...:, ' :. :. ,":!:,- j': .. : : :".. . '. ... ..."- : ::..%:,:,r- -::'-.--....-. ,"!,:..:.\-:!:,... ... ''.- '- - - --....- ..'--:. .'.......:..1:1.'. . i. .... -.: ;.:.:jj..--:,..--...-.. ' :.-11 el J.:!::. .....".":..:, .. ..I.. .. :'-, !,;." .....; ', .... " .: ' - -. - - . v .1' . :: ,:.i: -.1, : . .. . .. ..:: :i'. - -.H .i. 1%.,:!1 : .:...'.. :::::-:.. : : .......'. .!:.." :'.-..::...:" :?: .i..:: ':.: :- :: .. .' :.::......... :: . !..'::....::.. :!..:::::!: :!,.:;..'.:..:".;:;,.::::!:; . . Z'. :' :..... .. ..,.:: . 1. . . ... o.. !. -..: .. ... . .. :' . , ' I 11 . . '. .. : ' ,, . . '. :' . :'; :: : :z: .- : : .:. . . . . .. ...".1111111. .. .. I .. . ..:... :. . ::: : ,.: .::'. ' . . ., :I.. -:.. ... . ::, .. .... ... .::. .,:: .: .:::.... .'... ": .::.:;:..::.. ..... :..:.:. . ;. .. D OC:.l:::,.!!,...!......:.:::::...:::.:1] . . %' :. - .:::-:.'.''d...:',:::::.::::.:,::."Aortil-... ': ::....:..:....: .:!:''. ..:-..::.:.:.,.'.:.1.. , ..!!;:!,,..,..::.,..:..:!.%..,,::....:.':::!':!!::!:;:,:......::..::!::: ,: q. ,.. . .:..P . .:...::..... .. '::::::::!:: i:. .:: '.:'-.'""'!:' :,.:':; - :..:. -:::: -1:--:-,. :::,:.:.::.::. ...-.I.. ......,:.,.,.::.:...:;".:,;:..:... .::.'' ::!:: .X: ..:. :,:::::.. ... :.::. ':]:P," '' ,...:' - '- : '. -:"",:. ,.,:.: . , -,. - : - , .: ".: j':.:....:%:::::'"::i::,': - -,,'- ., " "''.: -,,-, -',,::`-:..: . .-- , -."'--1i",-,I:'-,;:!::' , -, -,':'.. ''-...'',-.., ,'..'..- ,":".::::.,::7:"::,.;,".:-- " --.11', ."",, ---':-"-,-,- , ' , - -! .' -,,::-''., ". -'. ,. . ".."-,_ -I.- -, ".--.- .. ,",-.-'.''.;,.I ., '' ",:-..,i,.,:i:::,:::,:,::.i::--"'-",------.-.....I..' .,:' -: ' -, - -. - - .1 - , -1. I'''.. Z: ,0 ', ... 1. . , .'..'.-.-I ...,:. ,I..

It s possibleto concludenotonly hat thevirgin orestwas notencountered nthe six-teenth ndseventeenthenturies; but hat] twas inventednthe lateeighteenthnd earlynineteenthenturies" Pyne1982,46). How-ever,"paradoxical s itmay eem,therewasundoubtedlymuchmore forest rimeval' n

1850 than n 1650" Rostlund 957,409). Thusthe "invention" f an earlierwilderness s inpartunderstandablend is notsimply delib-eratecreationwhich ennobled the Americanenterprise,s suggested y Bowden 1992, 0-23). In any event,while pre-European and-scape alteration as been demonstrated re-


14/18

The PristineMyth 381viously,ncluding y everalgeographers,hecase has mainly een made for egetationndmainly oreasternNorthAmerica.As shownhere, hearguments also applicable o mostof the restof the NewWorld, ncludinghehumid ropics, nd involvesmuchmore hanvegetation.The human mpact n environments notsimply processof ncreasinghangeordeg-radation n response to linear populationgrowth nd economic xpansion. t s insteadinterruptedy periods f reversalndecolog-ical rehabilitations culturesollapse,popula-tions decline,wars occur,and habitats reabandoned. mpactsmaybe constructive,e-nign, rdegenerativeallsubjectiveoncepts),butchange scontinualtvariable ates ndindifferentirections.Evenmild impacts ndslow changes are cumulative,nd the long-termffectsanbe dramatic.s itpossible hatthe thousands f yearsof human ctivitye-foreColumbus created morechange in thevisible landscape than has occurred subse-quently with European settlement andresource xploitation?he answer sprobablyyesformostregions or he next 50years rso, and for omeregions ight pto thepres-ent ime.Americanlora, auna, ndlandscapewere slowlyEuropeanizedfter 492,but be-fore hat heyhadalready een Indianized. Itis upon this imprinthat the more familiarEuro-Americanandscapewas grafted, atherthan createdanew" (Butzer 990,28). Whatdoes all thismeanfor rotectionistendenciestoday?Muchofwhat sprotectedrproposedto be protected rom umandisturbance adnative people present, and environmentalmodificationccurred ccordinglynd inpartis still etectable.The pristinemageof 1492seemsto be amyth,hen, n imagemore pplicable o 1750,followingndiandecline, althoughrecoveryhad onlybeen partial ythatdate. There ssomesubstanceothis rgument,nd t houldholdup under hescrutinyf furthernvesti-gation f theconsiderable vidence vailable,bothwrittennd intheground.Acknowledgments

The field nd libraryesearch hatprovidedhebackgroundor his ssaywas undertakenvermanyyearsnLatin merica, erkeley,nd Madison.Men-torswho havebeen particularlynfluentialreCarl0. Sauer,ErhardRostlund, amesJ.Parsons, nd

Woodrow orah, ll nvestigatorsftopicsdiscussedhere.Notes1. Sauer had a life-longnterestn this opic 1963,1966, 971, 980).2. See Nash 1967) n the "romantic ilderness" fAmerica;Bowden 1992, -12) on the inventedtradition"f the "primeval orest" f New En-gland; nd Manthorne1989,10-21) n artists'm-agesofthe ropicalEden" ofSouthAmerica. ay(1953,329) providesnumerous uotations romParkmann wilderness" nd "vast," virgin,"nd"icontinuous"orest.3. For xample, 1991 dvertisementor Time-Lifevideo refers o "the unspoiledbeaches, forests,and mountains fan earlierAmerica" nd "thepristinehores fChesapeakeBay n1607."4. On theotherhand, heabilityf ndians oclearlarge reeswith nefficienttone xes, assisted ygirdlingnd deadeningby fire,mayhave beenoverestimated Denevan forthcoming). ilver(1990, 1) notes hat he upland orestsfCarolinawere argelyninhabitedor hisreason.5. Similar onclusionswere reachedby forestersMaxwell 1910) and Day (1953); by geographersSauer 1963), rown1948,11-19), ostlund1957),and Bowden 1992); nd by environmentalisto-rians yne 1982,45-51), ronon 1983, 9-51), ndSilver1990, 9-66).6. B. Williams1989,730)finds trong videnceofrural verpopulation66 percent n poor cropyears, 1percentnaverageyears) nthe Basin fMexicovillage fAsunci6n, a. A.D. 1540,whichwasprobably notunique but a widespread he-nomenon."For a contraryonclusion, hat heAztecs id not xceedcarryingapacity,ee Ortizde Montellano1990,119).7. Highland uatemala rovides nother rehistoricexample f "severehuman isturbance"nvolvingdeforestationnd "massive" oil erosion slopes)anddepositionvalleys)Murdy 990, 86).For hecentral ndesthere s some evidence hatmuchof thepuna zone (3200-4500m),nowgrass ndscrub,wasdeforestednprehistoricimesWhite1985).8. TheEnglisholonistsnpart ustifiedheir ccu-pation f ndian andon thebasis that uch andhadnotbeen"subdued" nd therefore as "landfree obe taken"Wilson 992, 6).ReferencesAcosta,JosephJose] e. 1880 1590]. The naturaland moral history f the Indies. Trans. E.Gimston, akluyt ociety, ols. 60,61. London.Alcorn,. B. 1981. Huastecnoncrop esourceman-agement: mplicationsor rehistoricain orestmanagement. umanEcology :395-417.Anderson, . C. 1990. The historic ole of fire ntheNorthAmerican rassland.n Fire nNorthAmericanallgrass rairies,d. S. L. Collins nd


15/18

382 DenevanL. L.Wallace,pp. 8-18. Norman:UniversityfOklahomaPress.Bakeless, . 1950. The eyes of discovery: hepag-eantofNorth mericas seenby hefirstxplor-ers.NewYork:J.B. Lippincott.Balke,W. 1987. Cultural orests f the Amazon.Garden 1:12-14, 2.1989. The culture fAmazonian orests.nAdvancesnEconomic otany, ol. 7, pp. 1-21.NewYork:NewYorkBotanical arden.Bennett, . F. 1968. Humannfluencesnthe oo-geographyof Panama. Ibero-Americana1.Berkeley: niversityf Californiaress.Borchert, . 1950. Climate f the centralNorthAmericanrassland. nnals f heAssociationfAmerican eographers0:1-39.Bowden,M. J. 1992. The inventionfAmericantradition. ournalf Historical eography8:3-26.Brown,R. H. 1948. Historicaleography f theUnited tates.New York:Harcourt,race.Brown, ., andLugo,A. 1990. Tropical econdaryforests. ournalfTropical cology :1-32.Butzer, . W. 1990. The ndianegacyn heAmer-ican andscape. n Themaking ftheAmericanlandscape, d. M. P. Conzen,pp. 27-50. Bos-ton:UnwinHyman., and Butzer, . K. Forthcoming. he six-teenth-centurynvironmentf thecentralMex-icanBajfo:Archivaleconstructionrompanishland grants.nCulture, orm,ndplace,ed. K.Mathewson. atonRouge,LA:Geoscience ndMan.Col6n,C. 1976. Diariodeldescubrimiento,ol.1,ed. M.Alvar.Madrid:Editoriala Muralla.Columbus,C. 1961. Fourvoyages o the NewWorld:Letters nd selected documents, d.R. H. Major.New York:Corinth ooks.Cook,S. F. 1949. Soil erosion ndpopulationnCentralMexico. bero-Americana4. Berkeley:Universityf California ress., and Borah,W. 1971-79. Essaysnpopula-tionhistory.vols.Berkeley: niversityf Cali-fornia ress.Cowley,G. 1991. Thegreat iseasemigration.n1492-1992, When worlds collide: HowColumbus's oyages ransformedothEast ndWest. Newsweek, Special Issue, Fall/Winter,pp.54-56.Cronon,W. 1983. Changes n the and: Indians,colonists,ndthe cology fNewEngland. ewYork:Hill ndWang.Culbert, . P., and Rice,D. S., eds. 1990. Pre-columbian opulation istoryntheMaya ow-lands.Albuquerque:UniversityfNewMexicoPress.

Day,G. M. 1953. The Indian s an ecological ac-tor nthenortheasternorest. cology 4:329-46.

Denevan,W. M. 1961. Theuplandpine forests fNicaragua.Universityf CaliforniaublicationsinGeography2:251-320.. 1966. The boriginal ultural eographyfthe Llanosde Mojos of Bolivia. bero-Americana48. Berkeley: niversityf California ress.- 1980. Tipologra de configuracionesagrfcolas prehispdnicas. Am6rica Indigena40:619-52.. 1988. Measurement f abandonedterrac-ing from irphotos: Colca Valley, eru. Year-book, Conference f LatinAmericanisteogra-phers 4:20-30.* 1991. Prehistoricoads and causeways flowland ropicalAmerica.nAncient oad net-works nd settlement ierarchiesn the NewWorld,d. C. D. Trombold, p. 230-42.Cam-bridge:Cambridge niversityress.

, ed. 1992 1976]. The native opulation fthe Americasn1492, nded. Madison: Univer-sity fWisconsin ress.* Forthcoming. tone vs. metal xes: Theambiguityf shiftingultivationn prehistoricAmazonia. ournalf the Steward nthropologi-calSociety., andPadoch,C., eds. 1988. Swidden-fallowagroforestryn thePeruvian mazon.AdvancesinEconomic otany,ol.5. NewYork:NewYorkBotanical arden.Dobyns,H. F. 1981. From ire o flood: Historichumandestructionf Sonoran Desert riverineoases. Socorro,NM: BallenaPress.* 1983. Their umber ecome thinned:Na-tive American opulationdynamicsn easternNorth merica. noxville: niversityf Tennes-see Press.Donkin,R. A. 1979. Agriculturalerracingn theaboriginal ewWorld. iking undPublicationsinAnthropology6. Tucson: UniversityfAri-zona Press.Doolittle,W. E. 1990. Canal rrigationnprehistoricMexico:Thesequenceoftechnologicalhange.Austin:Universityf Texas Press.Forman, . T.T.,andRussell, .W. B. 1983. Eval-uationofhistoricalata inecology.BulletinftheEcological ociety f America4:5-7.Fowler,M. 1989. The Cahokia tlas: A historicalatlas of Cahokia rchaeology.tudies n IllinoisArchaeology. Springfield:llinois istoricres-ervation gency.Garren, . H. 1943. Effectsffire nvegetationfthe southeastern nitedStates. The BotanicalReview :617-54.Gartner, . G. 1992. The HulbertCreek ridgedfields:Pre-Columbiangricultureear heDells,Wisconsin.Master's hesis,DepartmentfGe-ography, niversityfWisconsin,Madison.Garcilaso e la Vega,The Inca. 1980[1605]. TheFloridaf the nca:Ahistoryf theAdelantado,


16/18

The PristineMyth 383Hernando e Soto. 2 vols. Trans. nd ed. J.G.Varner nd J.J. Varner.Austin:UniversityfTexasPress.Gilmore,M. R. 1931. Dispersal y ndians factorintheextension fdiscontinuousistributionfcertain pecies of nativeplants.Papersof theMichigan cademy f Science,Arts nd Letters13:89-94.Goldammer, .G., ed. 1990. Fire n the tropicalbiota: Ecosystem processes and globalchallenges.Ecological tudies,vol. 84. Berlin:Springer-Verlag.G6mez-Pompa,A. 1987. On Maya silviculture.Mexican tudies :1-17.; Salvador lores,.; and Sosa,V. 1987. The'pet kot":A man-madeorestf heMaya. nter-ciencia 2:10-15.Good, K. R. 1987. LimitingactorsnAmazonianecology. nFoodand evolution: oward theoryof human oodhabitats,d. M. Harrisnd E. B.Ross,pp. 407-21.Philadelphia: empleUniver-sity ress.Gordon,B. L. 1957. Humangeographynd ecol-ogy in the Sin6 countryf Colombia. bero-Americana9.Berkeley: niversityf CaliforniaPress.

- 1982. A Panamaforestnd shore:Naturalhistory nd Amerindianulture n Bocas delToro.Pacific rove:Boxwood ress.Greenberg,. S. C. 1991. Garden-huntingmongtheYucatecMaya.Etnoecol6gica:30-36.Haffer, . 1991. Mosaic distributionatterns fneotropical orest irds nd underlyingyclicdisturbance rocesses. n Themosaic-cycleon-cept of ecosystems,d. H. Remmert,p. 83-105.Ecologicaltudies, ol.85. Berlin: pringer-Verlag.Hardoy, . 1968. Urban lanningnpre-ColumbianAmerica. ew York:GeorgeBraziler.Hills, .L.,andRandall, .E.,eds. 1968. The col-ogy f theforest/savannaoundary.avannaRe-search eries13.Montreal:McGillUniversity.Hyslop, . 1984. The nkaroad ystem.NewYork:

Academic ress.Kolata,A. L. 1991. The technologyndorganiza-tionofagriculturalroductionn theTiwanakustate.Latin mericanntiquity:99-125.Lewis,H. T. 1982. Fire echnologynd resourcemanagementn aboriginalNorthAmerica ndAustralia.n Resourcemanagers:NorthAmeri-can andAustralian unter-gatherers,d. N. M.Williams nd E. S. Hunn,pp. 45-67.AAAS e-lected Symposia67. Boulder,CO: WestviewPress.Lord, .,and Burke, . 1991. America eforeCo-lumbus.U.S. Newsand WorldReport, uly ,pp.22-37.McEvedy, ., and Jones,R. 1978. Atlas fworldpopulation istory. ewYork:Penguin ooks.

MacNutt, F. A. 1909. Bartholomew de las Casas:His life,his apostolate, nd his writings. ewYork:Putnam's.Manthorne, .E. 1989. Tropicalenaissance: orthAmericanrtistsxploringatinAmerica, 839-1879. Washington: Smithsonian InstitutionPress.Martin, . 1978. Keepers f thegame: Indian-ani-mal relationshipsnd the fur rade. Berkeley:Universityf California ress.Mathewson, . 1987. Landscape hangeand cul-turalpersistencen the Guayaswetlands, cu-ador.Ph.D. dissertation,epartmentfGeog-raphy, niversityf Wisconsin,Madison.Maxwell, . 1910. Theuse and abuse offorests ytheVirginiandians.Williamnd MaryCollegeQuarterlyistorical agazine 9:73-103.Medina,E. 1980. Ecology f tropical mericana-vannas: An ecophysiological pproach. InHumanecology n savanna environments,d.D. R. Harris, p. 297-319.London:AcademicPress.Meinig, D. W. 1986. The shaping of America. Ageographicalerspectiven 500years fhistory,vol.1,Atlanticmerica,492-1800. ewHaven:YaleUniversityress.Melville,E. G. K. 1990. Environmental nd socialchange ntheValledelMezquital,Mexico, 521-1600.Comparativetudies nSocietyndHistory32:24-53.Mueller-Dombois, D. 1981. Fire ntropicalecosys-tems. nFire egimesndecosystem roperties:Proceedingsf theConference, onolulu, 978,pp. 137-76. General Technical Report WO-26.Washington: .S. Forest ervice.Murdy, . N. 1990. Prehispanicgriculturenditseffectsn the valley f Guatemala.Forest ndConservation istory4:179-90.Nash,R. 1967. Wildernessnd theAmerican ind.NewHaven,CT: YaleUniversityress.Ortizde Montellano, B. R. 1990. Aztec medicine,health, and nutrition.New Brunswick,NJ:Rutgers niversityress.Parsons, 1. 1. 1975. The changing nature of NewWorld ropical orests inceEuropean oloniza-tion. nThe use ofecologicalguidelines or e-velopment n the Americanhumid tropics,pp.28-38. nternationalnionforConservationof Nature and Natural Resources Publications,n.s., 31. Morges.. 1985. Raisedfieldfarmerss pre-Colum-bianlandscape ngineers:Lookingnorth romthe anJorgeColombia).nPrehistoricntensiveagriculturen the tropics, d. I. S. Farrington,pp. 149-65. InternationalSeries 232. Oxford:Britishrchaeological eports.

, and Denevan, W. M. 1967. Pre-Columbianridged ields. cientific merican 17 1):92-100.Patterson,W. A., III, and Sassaman, K. E. 1988.


17/18

384 DenevanIndian ires n theprehistoryf NewEngland.nHolocenehuman cology n northeasternorthAmerica,d. G. P. Nicholas, p. 107-35.NewYork:Plenum.Plazas,C., and Falchetti,.M. 1987. Poblamientoy adecuaci6nhidrdulican el bajoRfo anJorge,CostaAtlantica,olombia. n Prehistoricgricul-turalfields n theAndeanregion, d. W. M.Denevan, K. Mathewson,and G. Knapp,pp. 483-503. nternationaleries 359. Oxford:British rchaeological eports.Posey,D. A. 1985. Indigenousmanagementftropicalforest cosystems:The case of theKayap6 Indians of the BrazilianAmazon.Agroforestryystems:139-58.Pyne, . 1. 1982. Firen America: cultural istoryof wildlandand rural fire. Princeton,NJ:Princetonniversityress.

Raup,H. M. 1937. Recent hanges nclimate ndvegetationn southernNew England nd adja-centNewYork. ournalftheArnold rboretum18:79-117.Roosevelt, . C. 1991. Moundbuildersf theAm-azon: Geophysical rchaeology n Marajo s-land,Brazil. an Diego:Academic ress.Rostlund, . 1957. The myth f a natural rairiebelt n Alabama:An nterpretationfhistoricalrecords.Annals f theAssociation f AmericanGeographers7:392-411.1960. Thegeographicange fthehistoricbison n he outheast. nnals f heAssociationofAmerican eographers0:395-407.Russell, . W. B. 1983. Indian-setires n the for-ests ofthe northeasternnited tates.Ecology64:78-88.Saldarriaga,.G.,and West,D. C. 1986. Holocenefires n thenorthern mazonBasin.QuaternaryResearch 6:358-66., and Uhl,C. 1991. Recoveryf forest eg-etation ollowinglash-and-burngriculturenthe upperRfoNegro. nRainforestegenerationand management,d. A. G6mez-Pompa,. C.Whitmore, nd M. Hadley,pp. 303-12.Paris:UNESCO.Sale, K. 1990. Theconquestofparadise:Christo-pherColumbusnd theColumbianegacy.NewYork:Alfred . Knopf.Sanchez-Albornoz, . 1974. The populationofLatin merica: history.erkeley: niversityfCaliforniaress.Sanders,W. T.; Parsons,J.R.; and Santley, . S.1979. TheBasin fMexico: cological rocessesintheevolutionf a civilization.ewYork:Ac-ademicPress.Sauer,C. 0. 1950. Grassland limax, ire, ndman.JournalfRangeManagement:16-21.

1958. Man nthe cology f ropical mer-ica. Proceedings f the NinthPacific cienceCongress, 957 0:104-10.

. 1963 1927]. The barrens f Kentucky.nLand and life:A selectionfromhe writingsfCarl Ortwin auer,ed. J. Leighly, p. 23-31.Berkeley: niversityfCaliforniaress.I. 1966. The early panish Main. Berkeley:Universityf California ress.* 1971. Sixteenth-centuryorthAmerica:The and andthepeople as seen bytheEurope-ans. Berkeley: niversityf Californiaress.* 1975. Man'sdominance yuse offire.Geo-science nd Man10:1-13.* 1980. Seventeenth-centuryorth merica.Berkeley: urtleslandPress.Schwerin, . H. 1991. The Indianpopulations fLatin merica.nLatin merica,ts roblemsnditspromise:Amultidisciplinaryntroduction,d.J.K. Black, nd ed., pp. 39-53. Boulder,CO:Westview ress.

Scott,G.A.1. 1978. Grassland evelopmentntheGran Pajonal of easternPeru. HawaiiMono-graphsnGeography. Honolulu:UniversityfHawaii.Sheets,P., and Sever,T. L. 1991. Prehistoricoot-paths nCostaRica:Transportationndcommu-nicationn a tropical ainforest.n Ancient oadnetworksnd settlement ierarchiesntheNewWorld, d. C. D. Trombold, p. 53-65. Cam-bridge:Cambridge niversityress.Shetler,. 1991. Threefacesof Eden. n Seeds ofchange:A quincentennialommemoration,d.H.J.Viola nd C. Margolis, p.225-47.Washing-ton: Smithsoniannstitutionress.Siemens,A. H. 1990. Between he ummitndthesea: Central eracruzn the nineteenthentury.Vancouver: niversityf Britisholumbia ress.Silver, . 1990. A new face on the countryside:Indians, olonists, nd slaves n SouthAtlanticforests,500-1800. ambridge: ambridge ni-versityress.Silverberg, . 1968. Mound builders f ancientAmerica: he rchaeologyf myth. reenwich,CT: New YorkGraphic ociety.Smith, .J.H. 1980. Anthrosolsndhuman arry-ing apacityn Amazonia.Annals f theAssocia-tion fAmerican eographers0:553-66.Stout,A. B. 1911. Prehistoricarthworksn Wis-consin.Ohio Archaeologicalnd Historicalub-lications 0:1-31.Sturtevant, . C. 1961. Tainoagriculture.n Theevolution fhorticulturalystemsnnative outhAmerica, auses and consequences:A sympo-sium, ed. J. Wilbert,pp. 69-82. Caracas:Sociedadde CienciasNaturales a Salle.Taylor, . L. 1981. Firehistoryndfire ecords orEvergladesNationalPark. EvergladesNationalParkReport -619.Washington:NationalParkService,U.S. Departmentf the nterior.Thompson, . Q., and Smith, . H. 1970. The for-estprimevaln heNortheast-a reatmyth?ro-


18/18

The PristineMyth 385ceedings,TallTimbers ire cology onference10:255-65.Thoreau,H. D. 1949. The ournal fHenry . Tho-reau, ol.7, September,1854-October30,855,ed. B.TorreyndF. H.Allen.Boston:HoughtonMifflin.

Trombold, . D., ed. 1991. Ancient oadnetworksand settlement ierarchiesn the New World.Cambridge: ambridge niversityress.Uhl, C.; Nepstad,D.; Buschbacher, .; Clark,K.;Kauffman,.; and Subler, . 1990. Studies fecosystem esponseto natural nd anthropo-genic disturbancesprovide guidelines fordesigning sustainable land-use systems inAmazonia.nAlternativeso deforestation:tepstowardustainable se oftheAmazonrain or-est,ed. A. B. Anderson, p. 24-42.NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityress.Walschburger,., and von Hildebrand, . 1991.Thefirst6years f forest egenerationnnatu-ral nd man-made aps nthe ColombianAma-zon. In Rain forest egenerationnd manage-ment, d. A. G6mez-Pompa, . C. Whitmore,andM. Hadley, p. 257-63.Paris:UNESCO.Wafts,W.A.,andBradbury,.P. 1982. Paleoeco-logical tudies t Lake Patzcuaro n the west-centralMexican plateauand at Chalco in theBasin f Mexico. Quaternaryesearch 7:56-70.Wedel,W. R. 1957. The centralNorthAmericangrassland:Man-made r natural?ocialScienceMonographs :39-69.Washington: an Ameri-canUnion.

White, . 1985. Relations f subsistence o thevegetationmosaic f Vilcabamba, outhern er-uvian Andes. Yearbook,Conference f LatinAmericanisteographers1:3-10.Whitmore,. M. 1991. A simulation f the six-teenth-centuryopulation ollapse ntheBasinofMexico.Annals f heAssociation fAmericanGeographers1:464-87.; Turner, . L. I; Johnson, . L.; Kates,R. W.;and Gottschang,. R. 1990. Long-termopu-lation hange. In The earth s transformedyhuman ction, d. B. L.TurnerI, et al., pp. 25-39. Cambridge: ambridge niversityress.Williams,. 1. 1972. TepetatentheValley fMex-ico. Annals f the Association f American e-ographers2:618-26.1989. Contact eriodrural verpopulationin heBasin fMexico: Carrying-capacityodelstestedwithdocumentaryata. American ntiq-uity 4:715-32.Williams, . 1989. Americansnd their orests:historical eography.Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityress.Wilson,S.M. 1992. "Thatunmannedwildcoun-trey": Native Americans oth conserved andtransformedew World nvironments.aturalHistory, ay:16-17.Wood,W. 1977[1635]. New England's rospect,ed. A. T.Vaughan.Amherst: niversityf Mas-sachusetts ress.

denevan pristine myth aaag 82-3-1992

Documents