[dohboi]

http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/su ... -000-years

Some people enhanced the environment, not degraded it, over past 13,000 years

Apparently, just being human does not curse you to be an enemy of your environment. Traditional coastal societies apparently functioned ecologically in ways similar to salmon/bears, moving ocean minerals inland where they otherwise would have trouble getting to.

Human occupation is usually associated with deteriorated landscapes, but new research shows that 13,000 years of repeated occupation by British Columbia's coastal First Nations has had the opposite effect, enhancing temperate rainforest productivity.

Andrew Trant, a professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, led the study in partnership with the University of Victoria and the Hakai Institute. The research combined remote-sensed, ecological and archaeological data from coastal sites where First Nations' have lived for millennia. It shows trees growing at former habitation sites are taller, wider and healthier than those in the surrounding forest. This finding is, in large part, due to shell middens and fire.

"It's incredible that in a time when so much research is showing us the negative legacies people leave behind, here is the opposite story," said Trant, a professor in Waterloo's School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability. "These forests are thriving from the relationship with coastal First Nations. For more than 13,000 years --500 generations -- people have been transforming this landscape. So this area that at first glance seems pristine and wild is actually highly modified and enhanced as a result of human behaviour."

Fishing of intertidal shellfish intensified in the area over the past 6,000 years, resulting in the accumulation of deep shell middens, in some cases more than five metres deep and covering thousands of square metres of forest area. The long-term practice of harvesting shellfish and depositing remnants inland has contributed significant marine-derived nutrients to the soil as shells break down slowly, releasing calcium over time.

The study examined 15 former habitation sites in the Hakai Lúxvbálís Conservancy on Calvert and Hecate Islands using remote-sensed, ecological and archaeological methods to compare forest productivity with a focus on western red cedar...

[GHung]

For what it's worth, the grass is always greener over the septic tank, eh?

[dohboi]

Yes, human excreta itself is a plant nutrient, in the right quantities and treated properly.

But this seemed to do more with what we would now call solid waste--the shells these peoples harvested from the ocean then left in middens after they had eaten the meats within.

Nowadays, most of our wastes are toxic. On a macros scale, the main function of industrial society is to take essential elements of the earth and turn them into global toxins, on a massive and massively rapid scale.

But this shows that there's nothing in our DNA, in our basic 'nature,' that forces us to have a deleterious effect on our surroundings. We, like most other animals, can actually end up improving the health and viability of the ecosystems we inhabit.

We can, in fact, be "good neighbors!"

We (and specifically modern industrial society) have just chosen a...different path, with planetary lethal consequences.

[SeaGypsy]

This concept isn't new, I first heard it about 30 years ago in reference to nomadic aborigines in Australia, perhaps the American researchers weren't aware of that research I found on textbooks for university courses here in coastal management.

Since becoming an environmentalist when I learned how to think, one of the most obvious idiocies of modernity was how we concentrate nutrients then flush them out to sea (icky poo/ icky wee), a practice still carried on with abandon.

[JuanP]

In coastal Florida ancient shell mounds are an important part of the landscape. The natives mostly used them to purposefully raise the ground to make parts of their settlements more resistant to flooding and storm surges during hurricanes. It is very normal to visit an island here and find that its highest elevation is a shell mound. I like camping on them and adding shells to the pile.

The highest elevation in South Florida is a shell mound on Marco Island that is about 50ft above sea level though it has been, unfortunately, built on. The highest elevation in the whole state of Florida is a mound of a wholly different nature, though. It is called Mount Trashmore and it is a modern landfill.

The practice of using fish as fertilizer was very common, too.