Historical ecology concerns itself with interrelationships between human beings and the biosphere, that part of the earth suffused with life.

Historical ecology clearly requires data drawn from a multitude of disciplines.

Historical ecology focuses on the interpretation of culture and the environment rather than on the adaptation of human beings to the environment.

Historical ecology reflects a materialist viewpoint but cannot be equated with cultural materialism.

The principle of historical ecology deals in historical context rather than evolutionary to determine events responsible for principle changes in between societies and their immediate environments.

We should take notice that historical ecology is a view point rather than a field or a method.

Historical Ecology

Four Postulates to Historical Ecology

Much of the nonhuman biosphere has been affected by human activity.

• “no spot on the earth is unaffected by humans”• Some researches argue it applies to the prehistoric as well,

Australia being an example of an area that is largely separated. • Historical ecology assumes that humans are or have been present

an interrelationship exists between them and their regional environments.

• This postulate sheds no light on the uniqueness of humans as species.

Four Postulates to Historical Ecology

Much of the non-human biosphere has been affected by human activity

Postulate Two Human activity does not necessarily lead to

degradation and extinction of species. Nor does it necessarily create a more habitable biosphere for humans and others by increasing the abundance of these.

• Some evidence suggests that the creation of certain landscapes by humans beings did not result in irreversible damage to regional biodiversity.

• It undermines the doctrine of Homo devastans.• Alterations by Native Americans did not lead to species extinction • In Africa it is becoming clear that many equatorial forests once

thought to be pristine are in fact anthropogenic forests. • The evidence shown is to prove that humans are not biologically

programmed to be either stewards or destroyers of their environment.

Postulate Two

Human activity does not necessarily lead to degradation and extinction of species. Nor does it necessarily create a more habitable biosphere for

humans and others by increasing the abundance of these.

Postulate Three Different kinds of sociopolitical and economic systems in

particular regional context tend to result in qualitatively unlike effects on the biosphere on the abundance and speciosity of nonhuman life forms and on the historical trajectory of subsequent human sociopolitical and economic systems in the same regions.

• By looking at Amazonian people and looking at their activities that enhance environmental diversity it shows that not all nonindustrial political economies have had similar results.

• The rise of classic Maya has been associated with deforestation and increase pauperization of the environment.

Postulate Three

Different kinds of sociopolitical and economic systems in particular regional context tend to result in quantitatively unlike

effects on the biosphere and the abundance of speciosity of nonhuman life forms and on the historical trajectory of

subsequent human sociopolictical and economic systems in the same regions.

Postulate Four Human communities and cultures together with the landscape and

regions which they interact with over time can be understood as total phenomena.

• It is the visible manifestation of landscapes such as fallows and cultivated forests.

• Although culture remains central to historical ecology, this approach is perhaps less anthropogenic than others.

• If it is not in human nature to be the enemy or the warden of the environment humans can not be considered as wholly independent from their environment in given regional contexts.

Question:

If it is dramatically inappropriate to simplify biological and geological units into groups that have developed together throughout history, is there any type of model we can make to simplify the existing world without losing sight of the historically-accurate story of mutual determinism?

Postulate Four

Human communities and cultures together with they landscape and regions which they interact with over time can be understood as total

phenomena.

Question:

According to Balee in this week’s article “Historical Ecology: Premises and Postulates”: “Historical ecology concerns itself with interrelationships between human beings and the biosphere, that part of the earth suffused with life. Historical ecology clearly requires data drawn from a multitude of disciplines though it is centered on human.” In this light, it seems that historical ecology is a way of studying the new ecological perspective that Scoones introduced so many years ago.

This question has two parts:

First, what is the practicality of this construct? Is historical ecology a way we study or a reason we study?

Second, how might the paradigm change the applied approach of an ecological perspective?

Fishermen’s Frontier Fisherman’s Frontier is a narrative about the

destruction of the natural environment under forces of colonization, capitalism and industrialization. It will point out the inability of Americans to seen any limits to their own exploitation until the resource is destroyed.

It is a story about Southeast Alaska fisheries which is not in an economic crisis.

The book will be more about the cultures working at the fisheries than the fishes themselves.

It is about Native and Euro-American fishers, local fishing communities and the way various groups have shaped the salmon fishery.

The Fishermen’s Frontier: People & Salmon in Southeast Alaska

Introduction• Fisherman’s Frontier is a narrative about the destruction of the

natural environment under forces of colonization, capitalism and industrialization. It will point out the inability of Americans to seen any limits to their own exploitation until the resource is destroyed.

• It is a story about Southeast Alaska fisheries which is not in an economic crisis.

• The book will be more about the cultures working at the fisheries than the fishes themselves.

• It is about Native and Euro-American fishers, local fishing communities and the way various groups have shaped the salmon fishery.

Chapter 1 First Fisherman: The Aboriginal Salmon Fishery

Native American identity and history has been bound up in stereotypes: “idle savage”, “barbarian savage”, and the “noble savage” (Arnold 2008: 14).

Krech (1999) argues: The ecological Indian stereotype is dehumanizing. Denies variation between human groups.

Did Native salmon fishermen have the technological capacity or the cultural inclination to overexploit salmon populations? (Arnold 2008: 15).

The Nature of Salmon Anadromous life cycle of

salmon. Five distinct salmon species:1. Pink salmon*2. Silver salmon or coho3. Red salmon or sockeye4. King salmon or chinook5. Chum salmon Dynamic nature of salmon. Prehistoric salmon populations:

speculate as many as a hundred million salmon might return to southeastern Alaska on the largest years (Arnold 2009: 20).

*most abundant species in southeastern Alaska.

Photo Credit: http://wc-zope.emergence.com:8080/WildernessCommittee_Org/campaigns/wildlands/taku/reports/Vol26No03

First Peoples Theories of migration to NW

coast:1. Beringia land bridge connecting Asia to

Northern America2. Early pioneers coming by sea.

Settlement patterned by access to salmon.

Profound natural abundance on the NW coast, but “nature provided on its own terms” (Arnold 2008: 22).

Thus, NW coast people (i.e. Tlingit and the Haida) develop intensive and efficient methods of catching a storing salmon.

Rise of specialization in societies.

Photo Credit: http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/tlingit-carvings-3468-pictures.htm

The Numbers Game Anthropolgist Robert

Boyd projects a precontact population of 12,000 Tlingits and Haidas (Arnold 2008: 24).

NW region most densely populated region than any other in North America.

“Liebig’s law of the minimum”(Arnold 2008: 25).

The potential to put pressure on salmon populations in years of scarcity.

Photo Credit: http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/pink-salmon-1793-pictures.htm

Aboriginal Fishing Systems: Tools

Tlingit & Haida Fishing Tools: simple spears, gaff hooks, toggle barbed harpoons, lines with hooks, spears with seal bladder floats, wooden weirs, stone tiday traps, conical basket traps, trawl (reef nets), and fence work “box traps” (Arnold 2008: 27).

“Each method reflected an adaptation to different ecosystems” (Arnold 2008: 27).

Clear there was an “ecological” understanding of the natural world (Arnold 2008: 27).

Photo Credit:cybersalmon.fws.gov

Aboriginal Fishing Systems: Highly Effective Methods Wooden weirs and large

basket traps were the “most efficient, productive, and potentially destructive of all Indian fishing technologies” (Arnold 2008: 29).

Least amount of physical effort for the amount of fish caught (Arnold 2008: 29).

Traps set up in shallow waters at the upper reaches of the river systems, near spawning grounds (Arnold 2008: 29).

Fig. 138. "Dam and Fish Basket." F. Boas, Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island

Photo Credit: cybersalmon.fws.gov

Aboriginal Fishing Systems: Storage

Techniques Allows for year long salmon

consumption. Late summer & early fall:

the most intensive time when entire households work on storing salmon.

-Men: Fishing Labor-Women: Filleted &

stripped the salmon (slave help).

-Shamans and House Leaders: Preside over the process of smoking and drying.

Source: (Arnold 2008: 30).

Aboriginal Fishing Systems:

Storage Techniques Chum salmon the best for

drying. According to Tlingit Ruby

Jackson: “You never dry the first run in the rivers and creeks, it is better to wait until they have spawned. If salmon is smoked when it is oily, it turns rancid before winter and spring when it’s needed” (Arnold 2008: 30).

Aboriginal Fishing Systems:Potlach Ceremony

Salmon also play a cultural role. Potlach ceremonies initiated for

funerals, marriages, building new lodges, and recognizing a new leader.

Dancing, speechmaking, theatrical performance, singing, and gift giving occur.

The more gifts distributed, the higher the status of the family hosting the potlach.

Future reciprocity. Abundant stores of salmon provided

surplus to trade for exotic goods and enabled leaders from rich clans to hire artists to carve totem poles or canoes.

Source: (Arnold 2008: 31).

Tlingit Potlach guests “Totems to Turquoise: Native North American Jewelry Arts of the Northwest and Southwest” by Kari Chalker.

Sources of Salmon Management Anthropologists Steve

Langdon’s work: CA. & B.C.- Removed fish traps

so fish could travel upriver to inland people.

Suggests an understanding that fish populations are not finite.

Tlingit salmon fishers on Prince of Wales Island in southeastern Alaska include the concept of “escapement”.

Allowing enough fish to reach spawning ground to maintain the strength of the run.

Source: (Arnold 2008: 32-33). Artist: Bill Reid (Haida Tribe) http://www.nativeonline.com/limited.html

Sources of Salmon Management:

Respect & Ritual Spiritual relationship with salmon (Arnold 2008: 34).

“Native peoples needed to treat salmon- and all animals- with proper respect and be attentive to the many ritual requirements surrounding the hunt” (Arnold 2008: 34).

Powerful social code of take only as much as one needs and to never waste- in fear of animals taking revenge on humans (Oral Traditions).

Question:What are some of the ritual requirements among the Tlingit?

Sources of Salmon Management: Territoriality

“The most effective source of resource management among the Tlingit and Haida was their acute sense of property rights” (Arnold 2008: 36).

Question:

How did protecting territory rights effectively limit fishing intensity?

Conclusion “They were not

conservationists, ecologists, or environmentalists in the modern sense of those terms” (Arnold 2008: 39).

Had a deep ecological understanding of their world.

The Irony:-Native people usually communal in nature; however, territorial over their fisheries.-Euro-Americans believe in property and ownership but promote an “open access” fishery.

The Tlingit Raven Dancer, Gene Tagaban (the showcased guest performer of this year's Stanford Powwow) spreads his majestic wings in his full regalia.

Source: http://sites.google.com/site/aselingit/tlingits-today