1era sesion - the pristine myth - william denevan

8/11/2019 1era Sesion - The Pristine Myth - William Denevan

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.

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2/18

The PristineMyth:

The Landscape of the

Americas n 1492

William M.

Denevan

Department

f

Geography, niversity

f

Wisconsin,Madison,

WI

53706

Abstract. he myth ersists hat n 1492 the

Americaswere a sparselypopulated wilder-

ness, "a world of barelyperceptible

uman

disturbance." here is substantial vidence,

however, hat he NativeAmericanandscape

oftheearly ixteenthentury as a humanized

landscape almost everywhere.Populations

were large. Forest composition had been

modified, rasslands ad been created,wild-

life disrupted, nd erosion was severe in

places. Earthworks,oads, fields,

nd

settle-

mentswere ubiquitous.

With ndian

depopu-

lation n the wake of Old Worlddisease, the

environmentecovered

n

many

reas.

A

good

argument an

be

made that

he human

pres-

ence

was ess visible

n 1750 han twas

n

1492.

KeyWords: Pristine yth,492,Columbus,Native

American ettlementnd demography, rehistoric

New World, egetationhange, arthworks.

"This

s theforest rimeval

.

.

"

Evangeline: Tale

of

Acadie

(Longfellow,847).

HAT

was

the

New World

ike t the

time f

Columbus?-"Geography

s

_ itwas,"

in

the

wordsof Carl Sauer

(1971, ).1 he Admiral imselfpokeof "Ter-

restrial aradise," eautifulnd green nd fer-

tile, teeming

with

birds,with

naked

people

living herewhomhe called "Indians." utwas

the

landscape

encountered

n

the

sixteenth

century rimarilyristine,irgin, wilderness,

nearly mpty

f

people,

or was it humanized

landscape,

with he

imprint

f

native

Ameri-

cans being dramatic nd persistent?

he for-

mer till eemstobe themore ommon iew,

but the atter

may

be more ccurate.

The pristine iew s to a large xtent n in-

vention

f

nineteenth-centuryomanticist

nd

primitivist riters such as W.H.

Hudson,

Cooper,

Thoreau, Longfellow,

nd

Parkman,

and painters uch as Catlin nd Church.2

he

wildernessmage

has sincebecome part f the

American eritage, ssociated

with

a

heroic

pioneer past in need of preservation"Pyne

1982, 7; also see

Bowden

1992,22). The pris-

tine

view

was

restated learlyn 1950

by John

Bakeless in his

book The Eyes of

Discovery:

Therewere not

really erymany

f these redmen

... the and

eemed

empty

o

invaders ho came

from

ettled

Europe

. .

that ncient,

primeval,

undisturbed

ilderness .

. the streams

imply

boiled

with ish . .

so much

game

.

.

that ne

hunter

ounted

thousand

nimalsnear

single

salt

ick . .

the

virgin

ilderness f

Kentucky

..

the forested

lory

f

primitive

merica

13, 201,

223,314,407).

But henhe

mentions

hat

ndian

prairie ires

.

.

. cause the

often-mentioned oak open-

ings

.. Great ields fcorn

pread n

all

direc-

tions . .

.

the

Barrens

. .

withoutforest," nd

that

Early

hio

settlers ound hat hey ould

drive

bout

through he forests ith

leds and

horses" 31, 304,

308,314).

A

contradiction?

In the

ensuingforty ears,

scholarship as

shown

hat

ndian

populationsn

theAmericas

were substantial,

hat heforestshad

indeed

beenaltered, hat andscape hangewas com-

monplace.

This

message, however, eems not

to

have reached he

publicthrough exts,

s-

says,

or

talks

by both academics nd

popular-

izerswho

have

responsibility

o know

better.3

Kirkpatrick

ale in

1990,

in

his

widely re-

ported

Conquest

of

Paradise, maintains that t

was the

Europeanswho

transformed

ature,

following pattern

et

by

Columbus.

Although

Sale's book has some

merit nd he is awareof

large Indian

numbers

nd

their mpacts,he

nonethelesschampionsthe widely-held i-

chotomy

f

the

benign

ndian

andscapeand

Annals of the

Association

of

American

Geographers.

82(3), 1992, pp.

369-385

?

Copyright

992

byAssociation

f

American

eographers


3/18

370

Denevan

the devastated

Colonial

landscape.

He over-

statesboth.

Similarly,

eeds of

Change:

Christophero-

lumbus nd the Columbian egacy, he

popu-

larbook published y he Smithsonian

nstitu-

tion,continues he litanyf NativeAmerican

passivity:

pre-Columbian

mericawas still

he First

den,

pristine

atural

ingdom.

he native

eople

were

transparent

n

the andscape, iving

s

natural le-

ments

of the ecosphere. Theirworld,

he New

World

f

Columbus,

was a

world

fbarely ercep-

tiblehuman isturbanceShetler 991,

26).

To the contrary,he ndian mpact

was neither

benign

nor ocalized nd

ephemeral,

or

were

resources lwaysused in a sound

ecological

way. The concern

here is with he

form nd

magnitude of environmentalmodification

rather han

with

whether

r not ndians ived

in harmony

ith

nature

with ustainable ys-

tems of

resource

management.

ometimes

they id;

sometimes hey

idn't.What

hey

id

was to change

their andscape nearly very-

where,not

o

the

extent f post-Colonial uro-

peans but

n

important ays

hatmerit tten-

tion.

The evidence

s

convincing. y

1492

ndian

activityhroughout

heAmericas

ad

modified

forest xtent

nd

composition,

reated

nd

ex-

panded grasslands,ndrearranged icrorelief

via countless

rtificialarthworks.

gricultural

fields

were

common,

as were houses

and

towns and

roads and trails.

All of

these

had

local mpacts

n

soil, microclimate,

ydrology,

and

wildlife. his s a

large opic,

orwhich his

essay

offers

ut an introduction

o the

issues,

misconceptions,

nd

residual

problems.

The

evidence,piecedtogether

rom

ague

ethno-

historicalccounts,

ield

urveys,

nd archae-

ology, upports

he

hypothesis

hat he

ndian

landscapeof 1492 had largelyanished ythe

mid-eighteenth

entury,

ot

through

Euro-

pean superimposition,

ut because

of

the de-

mise

of the native

opulation.

he

landscape

of 1750

was more

pristine" less humanized)

than hat f 1492.

Indian

Numbers

The size

of the native

opulation

t contact

is critical

o our

argument.

he

prevailing

o-

sition, recent ne, isthat heAmericas ere

well-populated

ather han

relatively mpty

lands in

1492. In

the words of

the sixteenth-

centurypanish riest, artolome

e las

Casas,

who

knew

he Indieswell:

All

thathas been

discovered p

to

the yearforty-

nine

1549]

s full f

people, ike

hive f

bees, so

that

t eems as

though

God

had

placed ll,

or the

greater art

of the

entire

human race in

these

countriesLas Casas, in MacNutt 909, 14).

Las

Casas

believed hatmore han 0 million

Indianshad died by

the year1560. Did he ex-

aggerate?

n

the 1930s nd

1940s,

Alfred roe-

ber,Angel Rosenblat,

nd

Julian

teward

be-

lieved

that he had.

The

best

counts then

available

ndicated

population

f

between -

15 million ndians in

the

Americas.

Subse-

quently,

Carl

Sauer,

Woodrow

Borah,

Sher-

burne

F.

Cook, Henry obyns,George Lovell,

N. David

Cook, myself,nd others ave rgued

forargerstimates.Many cholars owbelieve

that herewerebetween 0-100millionndians

in hehemisphereDenevan 992).This onclu-

sion

is

primarily

ased on evidence

of

rapid

early

declinesfrom

pidemic

disease

prior

o

the

first

opulation

ounts

(Lovell,

this vol-

ume).

I have

recentlyuggested

New

World

otal

of 53.9

million

(Denevan

1992, xxvii).

This

di-

vides

nto

3.8 million orNorth

America,

7.2

million

for

Mexico,

5.6

million

for Central

America, .0 million orthe Caribbean,15.7

million or

he

Andes,

nd 8.6

million

or ow-

landSouthAmerica.

hesefiguresre based on

my udgment

s to

the mostreasonablerecent

tribal

nd

regional

stimates.

ccepting

mar-

gin

f

rror f

bout

20

percent,

heNewWorld

population

would lie between43-65 million.

Future

egional evisions re likely o maintain

the

hemispheric

otalwithin

his

range.

Other

recent stimates, one based

on

totaling

e-

gional igures,nclude

3 million

y

Whitmore

(1991,483),

40

million

by

Lord and Burke

1991),

40-50 million y Cowley 1991), nd80million

for

ust

Latin merica

y

Schwerin

1991, 0).

In

any vent, population etween

0-80 million

is sufficiento

dispel any

notion of

"empty

lands."

Moreover, he native mpacton the

landscape

f 1492

reflected

ot

only

he

popu-

lation then

but the

cumulative ffects

f a

growing opulation ver the

previous 5,000

years

r

more.

European ntry

nto

he

New World

bruptly

reversed

his

rend.

he decline

f

native mer-

icanpopulationswas rapid nd severe,proba-

bly

the

greatestdemographic

disaster ever

(Lovell,

his

olume).

Old World

iseases were


4/18

The PristineMyth

371

the

primary

iller.

n

many egions, articularly

the tropical owlands,populations ell by 90

percent

r more n the first

entury

fter

on-

tact. Indian populations

estimated) eclined

in Hispaniola rom

million n 1492to a few

hundred 0 years ater, r by more than 99

percent;in Perufrom9 million n 1520 to

670,000 n 1620 92

percent);

n

the Basin of

Mexico from .6 million

n 1519to 180,000 n

1607 89 percent); nd

in

North merica rom

3.8

million n 1492

o

1 million n

1800

74 per-

cent).

An

overall rop

from

3.9 million

n

1492

to

5.6

million

n

1650

mounts o

an 89

percent

reduction (Denevan 1992, xvii-xxix).The

human andscapewas affected

ccordingly,

l-

though here

s not

lways direct elationship

between

opulation ensity

nd human

mpact

(Whitmore,t al. 1990, 7).

The replacement

f

Indiansby Europeans

and Africans

as

initially slowprocess. By

1638 therewere onlyabout 30,000Englishn

North

America Sale

1990, 388),

and

by

1750

there were

only

1.3 million

Europeans

nd

slaves

Meinig 986, 47).

ForLatin

America

n

1750,Sainchez-Albornoz1974, ) gives total

(includingndians)

f

12 million. or

he hemi-

sphere in 1750, the Atlas of World

Population

History eports 6 million

McEvedy nd Jones

1978, 70). Thus heoverallhemisphericopu-

lation n 1750was about30

percent

f

what t

mayhave been in 1492.The 1750

population,

however, was very

unevenly distributed,

mainlyocated

n

certain oastal nd highland

areas

with

ittle

uropeanization

lsewhere.

n

North

America

n

1750, herewere

only

mall

pockets

f

settlement

eyond

he coastal

belt,

stretching

rom

New England o northernlor-

ida (see maps n Meinig

986,209, 245). Else-

where, ombined

ndian nd

European opu-

lationswere sparse, nd environmental

mpact

was relatively inor.

Indigenous mprints

n

landscapes

at the

time

f

nitial

uropean

ontact

aried

region-

ally

n form nd

intensity.

ollowing

re

exam-

ples

for

vegetationnd

wildlife, griculture,

and the built

andscape.

Vegetation

The Eastern orests

The

forests

f

New

England,

he

Midwest,

and

the Southeast

ad

been disturbed o

vary-

ingdegreesby ndian ctivityrior o European

occupation.Agriculturallearing nd burning

had convertedmuch f the forest nto ucces-

sional fallow) rowth

nd nto emi-permanent

grassyopenings

(meadows, barrens,plains,

glades, savannas,prairies), ften f consider-

able size.4Muchof

the mature orest as char-

acterized y an

open, herbaceousunderstory,

reflectingrequent

round ires. The de Soto

expedition,

onsisting

f

many eople,

a

large

horse herd,

nd

many wine,passed through

ten states without

difficulty

f

movement"

(Sauer 1971,283).The situation as been de-

scribed

n

detail by Michael

Williams

n his

recenthistory f

American orests: Much of

the natural' orest emained, ut heforest as

not the vast, silent,unbroken, mpenetrable

and dense tangle of trees beloved by many

writersn their

omanticccounts f theforest

wilderness"1989, 3).5 The resultwasa forest

of

arge,widely paced

trees, ew hrubs,

nd

much grass and herbage . .

.

Selective Indian

burning

hus

promoted he

mosaic

quality

f

New

England cosystems, reating orests

n

many ifferenttates f ecological uccession"

(Cronon 983, 9-51).

The

extent,

requency,

nd

impact

f Indian

burning

s

notwithout

ontroversy.aup 1937)

argued hat limatichangerather han ndian

burning

ould account

for

certain

egetation

changes.Emily

ussell

1983, 6), ssessing re-

1700 nformationor

he Northeast,oncluded

that:

There

s no

strong

vidence

hat

ndians

purposely

urned

arge reas,"

but ndians id

'increase the

frequency

f

fires bove the

ow

numberscaused

by lightning," reating

n

open forest.But then Russell dds: "In most

areas climate and soil

probablyplayed the

major

role

n

determining

he

precolonial

or-

ests." She

regards

ndianfires s

mainly

cci-

dental nd"merely" ugmentalo natural ires,

and

she discounts he

reliability

f

many arly

accounts f

burning.

Forman

nd

Russell

1983, ) expand

the ar-

gument

o NorthAmerica n

general: regular

and

widespread

ndian

burningDay 1953) is]

an

unlikely ypothesis

hat

egretfully

as

been

accepted

in

the

popular

literature

nd con-

sciousness."

This

conclusion, believe,

s

un-

warranted

iven eports

f

the xtent

f

prehis-

toric human

burning

n

NorthAmerica nd

AustraliaLewis1982),and Europe Patterson

and Sassaman

1988,

130),

and

by my

wn and

other

bservations

n

current

ndian nd

peas-


5/18

372

Denevan

ant

burning

n Central

America nd South

America;when unrestrained,eople burn re-

quently nd

for

many easons.For he North-

east, Pattersonnd Sassaman 1988,129) ound

that edimentaryharcoal ccumulations ere

greatest here ndian opulations ere great-

est.

Elsewhere n NorthAmerica, he Southeast

ismuchmorefire rone han s the Northeast,

withhuman gnitions eing specially mport-

ant

n

winterTaylor 981).The Berkeley eog-

rapher nd Indianist rhardRostlund 1957,

1960) rgued hat ndian learing nd burning

created manygrasslandswithinmostly pen

forest n

the so-called "prairiebelt" of Ala-

bama. As

improbable

s it

may eem,

Lewis

(1982)found ndianburning n the subarctic,

and

Dobyns 1981)

n

the

Sonoran

desert.The

characteristicsnd impacts f

fires et

by ndi-

ans

variedregionally

nd

locally

with

demog-

raphy, esourcemanagementechniques, nd

environment,

ut such

fires learly ad differ-

ent

vegetation mpacts

han

did

natural ires

owing

to

differences

n

frequency, egularity,

and

seasonality.

Forest

omposition

In

NorthAmerica, urning

ot

only main-

tained

pen

forest nd small

meadows

but lso

encouraged

fire-tolerant

nd

sun-loving pe-

cies.

"Fire

created

conditions

favorable o

strawberries, lackberries, aspberries, nd

other

gatherable

oods"

(Cronon 1983, 51).

Other useful

plants

were

saved, protected,

planted, nd transplanted,uch

as American

chestnut,

anada

plum,Kentucky

offee

ree,

groundnut,

nd leek

(Day 1953,339-40).

Gil-

more 1931)described hedispersal f several

nativeplantsby Indians.Mixed

standswere

converted o

single pecies dominants,

nclud-

ing variouspines and oaks, sequoia, Douglas

fir, pruce,

nd

aspen (M.

Williams

989,

47-

48).

The

longleaf,

lash

pine,

and

scrub oak

forests fthe Southeast re almost

ertainly

n

anthropogenic

ubclimax reated

riginallyy

Indian burning,replaced

in

early Colonial

times

by

mixed

hardwoods,nd maintained

n

part by

fires

et

by subsequent

farmers

nd

woodlotowners Garren 943). Lightningires

can accountfor ome fire-climaxegetation,

but

Indian

burning

ould

have extended nd

maintaineduch

vegetationSilver 990, 7-19,

59-64).

Even in the

humid tropics,where natural

fires re rare,human firescan dramatically

influence orestomposition. good example

isthepineforestsfNicaraguaDenevan1961).

Open pine standsoccur

both

n the northern

highlandsbelow5,000 eet) nd in the eastern

(Miskito)

owlands,wherewarm emperatures

and heavy ainfallenerally avormixed ropi-

cal montane orestr

rainforest.

he

extensive

pineforests fGuatemala nd Mexicoprimarily

grow

n

cooler and drier,higher levations,

where hey re

n

argepartnatural nd prehu-

man Watts ndBradbury982, 9). Pineforests

were definitelyresent n Nicaraguawhen Eu-

ropeans arrived.They were found in areas

where Indian ettlement as substantial, ut

not n he astern

mountains here ndian en-

sities

were parse.

The

eastern oundary

fthe

highland ines seems to havemovedwith n

eastern ettlementrontierhat

has

fluctuated

back and forth

ince

prehistory.

he

pines

occur

oday

where

herehas been

clearing

ol-

lowedbyregular

urningnd the

ame s

ikely

in

the past. The

Nicaraguan ines

are fire ol-

erant nce

mature,

nd

large

numbers

f eed-

lings urvive o

maturity

f

hey an escape

fire

duringheir irsthree o sevenyears Denevan

1961,280). Where

settlement as

been

aban-

doned

and fire

eases,

mixed

hardwoods

rad-

ually replace pines. This succession

is

likely

similar herepinesoccurelsewhere t low el-

evations

n

tropical

entral

merica,

he Carib-

bean,

and Mexico.

Midwest rairies

nd

Tropical

avannas

Sauer

(1950, 1958, 1975) argued early

and

oftenhat hegreat rasslandsndsavannas f

the New

World

were

of

anthropogenic

ather

than

limatic

rigin,

hatrainfall

as

generally

sufficient

o

support

rees. Even

nonagricul-

tural ndians

xpanded

what

may

have

been

pockets

of

natural, daphic grasslands

t the

expense

offorest. fire

urning

o

the

edge

of

a

grass/forestoundary

ill

penetrate

he drier

forest

margin

nd

push

back the

edge,

even

if

the

forest tself

s not

consumed

(Mueller-

Dombois

1981,164). Grassland an

therefore

advance

significantly

n

the

wake

of hundreds

ofyears fannualfires. ightning-setires an

have

a

similar mpact,

ut more

slowly

f

ess


6/18

The

Pristine

Myth 373

frequent hanhuman ires,

s in the wettrop-

ics.

The thesis f prairiess fire

nduced, rimar-

ily by Indians,has its critics

Borchert 950;

Wedel1957), ut herecent eview

f he opic

byAnderson 1990, 4),a biologist,oncludes

that most ecologists now believe that the

eastern

prairies

would have mostly isap-

peared

f

t

had

not

been

for he nearly nnual

burningof

these

grasslands

by

the

North

Americanndians," uring he ast ,000years.

Acase inpoint s the nineteenth-century

nva-

sionofmany rasslands yforestsfter

ire ad

been suppressed

n

Wisconsin, llinois,Kan-

sas, Nebraska, nd elsewhere M. Williams

1989, 6).

The arge avannas fSouthAmerica re also

controversials to

origin.

Much,

f

not

most f

the

open vegetationf

heOrinocoLlanos, he

Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia,

he Pantanal f

Mato Grosso,the Bolivar avannas f

Colom-

bia,

the

Guayas

savannasof coastal

Ecuador,

the

campo

cerrado

f

centralBrazil, nd the

coastal savannas north

f the

Amazon,

s of

natural rigin.

The

vast

campos cerrados c-

cupy xtremelyenile,

ften oxic xisols.

The

seasonally nundated avannas

fBolivia, ra-

zil, Guayas,

nd

the

Orinoco

owe their xis-

tence to the intolerancefwoody speciesto

the extreme lternation

f

engthy looding

r

waterlogging

nd severedesiccation uring

long dry season. These savannas,however,

were and are burnedby ndians nd ranchers,

and such fireshave

expanded

the

savannas

into heforestso an unknown xtent.

t s

now

very ifficulto determine here natural or-

est/savannaoundary

nce was located

Hills

and Randall

968;

Medina

1980).

Other mall avannashave

been

cut out

of

the rainforesty ndian armersndthenmain-

tained

by burning.

An

example

s the

Gran

Pajonal

n

the Andeanfoothills

n

east-central

Peru, where dozens

of small

grasslands

(pajonales)

have been createdbyCampa

Indi-

ans-a

process learly

ocumented

y

ir

pho-

tos

(Scott1978). Pajonales

were

in

existence

when the

region

was first

enetrated

y

Fran-

ciscan

missionaryxplorers

n

1733.

The impact

of human activity

s

nicely

illustrated y vegetational

hanges

n the

ba-

sins

ofthe San

Jorge, auca,

and Sinurivers

f

northernColombia. The southernsector,

whichwas

mainly

avannawhen

first

bserved

in the sixteenth entury,had reverted o

rainforesty about 1750 followingndiande-

cline, nd had been reconvertedo savanna or

pasture 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

'treeless

ridge,"

ow

probably

orested.ndian

settlementnd agriculturalieldswere com-

mon at the time, nd withtheirdecline the

rainforesteturned.

AnthropogenicropicalRainForest

The tropical ain orest as long had a repu-

tationforbeing pristine, hethern 1492or

1992. There s, however, ncreasing vidence

that heforests

f

Amazonia nd elsewhere re

largely nthropogenicn form nd composi-

tion. auer 1958, 05) aid

as much ttheNinth

Pacific cienceCongress n 1957when he chal-

lengedthe statement f tropical otanist aul

Richardshat, ntil ecently,he ropical orests

havebeen largely ninhabited,nd that rehis-

toricpeople had 'no more nfluence n

the

vegetation han nyof

the

other nimal nhab-

itants." auer countered hat ndianburning,

swiddens, nd manipulation f composition

had extensively odified he tropical orest.

"Indeed,

n

muchof Amazonia,

t s

difficult

to find oils hat re not tuddedwith harcoal"

(Uhl,

et

al.

1990,30).

The

question s,

to what

extent oes this vidence reflectndianburn-

ing

n

contrast

o

natural lightning)ires, nd

whendid these fires ccur?The role of

fire n

tropical

orest

cosystems

as received onsid-

erable ttention

n

recent

ears, artly

s

result

of

major

wildfires

n

East

Kalimantan

n

1982-83

and smallforest iresnthe VenezuelanAma-

zon

in

1980-84

Goldammer 990). Lightning

fires, houghrare

n

moist ropical orest, o

occur

in

drier

tropical

woodlands

(Mueller-

Dombois

1981, 49).

Thunderstorms

ith

ight-

ning re

muchmore ommon

n the

Amazon,

compared

o North

merica,

ut

n

the

tropics

lightning

s

usually ssociated

with

heavy

rain

and

noncombustible,

verdant

vegetation.

Hence Indian

fires

undoubtedly ccount

for

most ires

n

prehistory,

ith heir

mpact ary-

ing

with

he

degree

of

aridity.

Inthe RioNegro region fthe Colombian-

Venezuelan

Amazon,

oil

charcoal

s

very

orn-


7/18

374

Denevan

mon n uplandforests. -14dates range rom

6260-250 B.P.,

well within human times

(Saldarriagand West1986).Mostof the char-

coal probably

reflects ocal swidden

burns;

however, here re some indicationsf forest

fires t ntervalsf everal undred ears,most

likely gnitedby swidden fires. Recentwild

fires n the upper Rio Negroregionwere

n

a

normally oist ropical orest3530mm nnual

rainfall)hathad experienced everalyears f

severe

drought.

uch

infrequent

ild fires

n

prehistory, long

with the

more frequent

ground fires,

ould have had

significant

m-

pacts

n forest

uccession, tructure,

nd com-

position. xamples re

the

pine

forests f Nic-

aragua, mentioned bove,

the oak forests f

Central merica, ndthebabassu palmforests

of eastern Brazil.

Widespread

nd

frequent

burningmay

have

brought

bout the extinc-

tionof some endemic pecies.

The Amazonforest

s

a mosaic of different

ages, structure,

nd

composition resulting

from ocal habitat onditions nd disturbance

dynamics Haffer 991).

Natural isturbances

(treefalls, andslides,

iver

ctivity) ave

been

considerably ugmentedby

human

activity,

particularlyy hifting

ultivation.

ven

small

number f swiddenfarmersan have a wide-

spread impact n a relativelyhortperiodof

time.

n

theRro

Negro egion, pecies-diversity

recoveryakes60-80years ndbiomass ecov-

ery

140-200

years Saldarriaga

nd Uhl

1991,

312).

Brown nd

Lugo 1990, )

estimate hat

today boutforty ercent fthetropical orest

in

LatinAmerica

s

secondary

s a result f

human

learing

nd thatmost f heremainder

has had some modificationespite urrentow

population

ensities.

he

speciescomposition

of

early tages

of swidden allows iffersrom

that f natural apsandmay alter hespecies

composition

f the

mature orest

n

a

long-

term

scale" (Walschburgernd

Von Hilde-

brand

991, 62).

Whilehuman nvironmental

destruction

n

Amazonia

urrently

s

concen-

trated

long roads,

n

prehistoric

imes ndian

activity

n the

upland interflueve)

orests as

much less intense but more

widespread

(Denevan forthcoming).

Indianmodificationf tropical orests

s

not

limited o clearingand burning.Large ex-

panses

of

LatinAmerican orests re human-

ized forestsnwhich hekinds, umbers, nd

distributionsf useful

pecies

are

managed y

humanpopulations. oubtless, his ppliesto

the past as well. One

important echanismn

forestmanagements

manipulationf swidden

fallows sequential

agroforestry)o increase

usefulspecies. The

planting, ransplanting,

sparing, nd protectionf usefulwild,fallow

plants eliminates lear

distinctions etween

field nd fallow

Denevan and Padoch 1988).

Abandonments a slowprocess,not n event.

Gordon

1982,79-98) describes managed re-

growth egetation

n

eastern

anama,

whichhe

believes

extendedfromYucatan o northern

Colombia

n

pre-European

imes.The

Huastec

of

easternMexico and the Yucatec

Maya

have

similar orms f

forest ardens r forestman-

agement Alcorn 981; Gomez-Pompa 987).

The Kayapo f theBrazilian mazon ntroduce

and/or rotectuseful

plants

n

activity

reas

("nomadic griculture")

djacent o villages r

camp ites,

n

foraging

reas,alongtrails,

ear

fields, nd

in

artificial

orest-mounds

n

sa-

vanna

Posey 1985).

n

managedforests, oth

annuals and

perennials

re

planted

or trans-

planted,

whilewild fruit rees are

particularly

common

n

early uccessionalgrowth.Weed-

ingbyhandwas

potentially ore elective han

indiscriminateeeding

by machete Gordon

1982, 57-61). Much

dispersalof edible plant

seeds is unintentionalia defecationnd spit-

ting

ut.

The

economicbotanistWilliam

Balee (1987,

1989) peaks

of

"cultural"

r

"anthropogenic"

forests

n

Amazonia

n

which

pecies

havebeen

manipulated,

ftenwithout reduction

n

nat-

ural

iversity.

hese nclude

pecialized

orests

(babassu, Brazilnuts,

ianas,palms,bamboo),

which

urrently ake up at least

11.8

percent

(measured)

of the total

upland

forest

n

the

Brazilian mazon

Balee 1989, 4).

Clear ndica-

tions of past disturbance re the extensive

zones of terra

reta blackearth),

which ccur

along

he

edges

ofthe

arge loodplains

s

well

as

in

the

uplands Balee

1989, 10-12;

Smith

1980).

These

soils,

with

depths

to 50 cm or

more,

ontain

harcoal

nd cultural aste

from

prehistoricurning

nd settlement. iven

high

carbon, nitrogen, alcium,

and

phosphorus

content,

erra

reta

oils havea distinctive

eg-

etation

and are attractive o farmers.

alee

(1989, 14) concludes that

"large portions

f

Amazonian orests ppear to exhibit he con-

tinuing ffects f past human nterference."

The

same argument as been made for the


8/18

The

Pristine

Myth

375

Maya

owlands

Gomez-Pompa,

t

al. 1987) nd

Panama Gordon 1982).

There are no virgin

tropical orests

oday,norwerethere

n 1492.

Wildlife

The

ndigenous mpact n wildlifes

equivo-

cal.

The thesis

hat overkill"

unting aused

the

extinction

f

ome argemammalsn

North

America uring he ate

Pleistocene, s well s

subsequent ocaland

regional epletionsMar-

tin

978, 67-72), emains

ontroversial.

y

he

time

f

the

arrival f

Cortez

n

1519, he

dense

populations

f

Central

Mexico

pparently

ad

greatly educed

the

number

f

large game,

given

reports hat they at

any iving hing"

(Cook and Borah1971-79, 3) 135, 140). In

Amazonia,

ocal

gamedepletion

pparentlyn-

creases

with

village

ize and duration

Good

1987).

Hunting rocedures

n

many

regions

seem,

however, o have allowed

for

recovery

because

of the

"resting"

f

huntingones

in-

tentionally

r

as a result fshiftingf

village

sites.

On the other

hand,

forest

isturbance

n-

creased herbaceous

forage

nd

edge

effect,

and hence the

numbers

of some

animals

(Thompson nd Smith 970,261-64). Indians

created deal

habitats or

host f

wildlife

pe-

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 other

game

increases n

swiddens and

fallows

n

Yucatan ndPanama

Greenberg 991;

Gordon

1982, 96-112;

Bennett 968). Rostlund

1960,

407)

believed

hat he creation f

grassy

pen-

ings ast

of the

Mississippi xtended

he range

of the bison,whose numbersncreasedwith

Indian

depopulation and reduced

hunting

pressure

between

1540-1700,

and

subse-

quently

eclined

under

White

pressure.

Agriculture

Fields nd

Associated eatures

To observers

n

the sixteenth

entury,

he

most isible

manifestation

f the

NativeAmer-

ican andscapemusthavebeen thecultivated

fields,

which

were

concentrated

round

vil-

lages and houses. Most fields

re ephemeral,

their resence

uickly rasedwhenfarmers

i-

grateor die, but

there re many

ye-witness

accounts

of the

great

xtent

f

Indianfields.

On

Hispaniola,

as Casas and Oviedo

reported

individual ieldswith housands fmontones

(Sturtevant961,

73).

These were

manioc nd

sweetpotatomounds -4

m in

circumference,

ofwhich

pparently

one have

urvived.

n

the

Llanosde Mojos

in

Bolivia, hefirst xplorers

mentioned

ercheles,

r corn

cribs n

pilings,

numbering p to 700 in a

single field,each

holding 0-45 bushelsof food

Denevan 1966,

98).

In

northern lorida

n

1539,

Hernandode

Soto's

army assed

through

umerous

ields

f

maize,beans, nd

squash,

heir

main ourceof

provisions; n one sector,"greatfields . .

were spread out

as far s the eye could see

across

two

eagues

of the

plain"

Garcilaso

e

la

Vega 1980, 2) 182; also

see

Dobyns1983,

135-46).

It is

difficulto obtain a reliableoverview

from uch

descriptions.

side

frompossible

exaggeration,

uropeans

ended

not to

write

about

field

size, production,

r

technology.

More

useful re variousforms

f

relict

ields

and field

eatures hat

ersist

or

enturies

nd

can still

be

recognized,measured,

nd exca-

vatedtoday.These extant eatures,ncluding

terraces,rrigation

orks,

aised

ields,

unken

fields, rainage

ditches,dams, reservoirs,

i-

version

walls, nd field

ordersnumber

n

the

millions

nd are distributed

hroughout

he

AmericasDenevan

980;

see also Doolittle nd

Whitmorend

Turner,

his

olume).

For

xam-

ple,

about 500,000 ha of

abandoned raised

fields

urvive

n

the

San

Jorge

asin f northern

Colombia

Plazas

and Falchetti

987, 85),

and

at least

600,000

a of

terracing, ostly

f

pre-

historic rigin, ccur in the PeruvianAndes

(Denevan

1988, 0).

There

re

19,000

ha of

vis-

ible

raised

fields

n

ust

the

sustaining

rea

of

Tiwanaku

t

LakeTiticaca

Kolata

991, 09)

nd

there

were

about

12,000

ha

of

chinampas

(raised

fields)

around the Aztec

capital

of

TenochtitlanSanders,

t al.

1979,390).

Com-

plex canal

systems

n the north oast of Peru

and

in

the Salt River

alley

n

Arizona

rrigated

more

land

in

prehistory

han

is

cultivated

today.About

175 sites of

Indian

gardenbeds,

up

to

severalhundred cres

each,

have been

reportedn Wisconsin Gartner 992).These

various

emnant ields

robably epresent

ess


9/18

376

Denevan

than 25

percent

f

what once existed,

most

being

buriedunder ediment

r destroyed y

erosion, urbanization, lowing, nd bulldoz-

ing. On

the

otherhand, n inadequate ffort

has been made to searchfor ncient ields.

Erosion

The size of native

populations, ssociated

deforestation,

nd

prolonged ntensivegricul-

ture

ed

to

severe

and

degradation

n

some

regions.

uch

a landscapewas that f Central

Mexico,

where

by 1519food production res-

sures

may

have

brought he

Aztec

ivilization

to the

verge

of

collapse

even without

panish

interventionCook and Borah 971-79 3),129-

76).6

There s good evidence that everesoil

erosion was alreadywidespread, ather han

just

the

result

f

subsequentEuropean low-

ing, ivestock,nd deforestation.ook exam-

ined the association etween rosional

ever-

ity gullies,barrancas, and and siltdeposits,

and sheet

rosion)

nd

pre-Spanishopulation

density

or

proximity

o

prehistoric

ndian

towns.

He

concluded hat an importantycle

of erosion nd

deposition

herefore

ccompa-

nied ntensiveanduseby hugeprimitiveop-

ulations

n

central

Mexico,

and

had

gone

far

toward he devastation fthecountryefore

the

white

man

rrived"

Cook 1949, 6).

Barbara

Williams

1972, 18) describeswide-

spread epetate,

n induratedubstrate orma-

tion

exposed by

sheet

erosion

resulting

rom

prehistoricgriculture,s "one

of the

domi-

nant urfacematerials

n

heValley fMexico."

On

the

other

hand, anthropologist

elville

(1990, 7) argues

hat

oil erosion

n

the

Valle

de

Mezquital, ust

north f

the

Valley

f Mex-

ico,

was

the result f

overgrazing y Spanish

livestock tartingefore 600: "there san al-

most otal

ack of

evidence of environmental

degradation

efore he

last threedecades of

the sixteenth

entury."

he

Butzers, owever,

in

an

examinationf

Spanish andgrants, raz-

ing patterns,

nd soil

and

vegetation cology,

found that

there

was

only ight

ntrusion f

Spanish

livestock

sheep

and

cattle were

movedfrequently)nto

he

southeasternajro

near

Mezquital

until fter 590 and that

ny

degradation

n

1590

was "as much matter f

long-term

ndian

and use as itwas of

Spanish

intrusion"Butzer nd Butzerforthcoming).

The

relative olesof Indian

nd

early panish

impacts n Mexico stillneed resolution; oth

were clearly ignificantut varied n time nd

place. Under the Spaniards, however, ven

with greatly educed population, he land-

scape in Mexicogenerally id not recover ue

to acceleratingmpacts rom ntroducedheep

and cattle.7

The Built Landscape

Settlement

TheSpaniards nd other uropeanswere m-

pressedby argeflourishingndian ities uch

as

Tenochtitlan, uito, and Cuzco, and they

tooknoteoftheextensive uins folder, ban-

doned cities such

as Cahokia, Teotihuacan,

Tikal,

han

Chan, nd TiwanakuHardoy 968).

Most

f hese ities

ontainedmore han 0,000

people.

Less

notable,

r

possibly

more taken

for

granted,

was

rural ettlement-small

il-

lagesof a

few

housand r a

few

hundred eo-

ple, hamlets f a few families, nd dispersed

farmsteads.

he

numbers

and

locations of

much

of

this ettlement ill

never

be known.

With

he

rapiddecline of

native

populations,

the

bandonment

f

houses

and entire

illages

and thedecayofperishablematerialsuickly

obscured

sites, specially

n the

tropical

ow-

lands.

We do have some

early istings

f

villages,

especially

orMexico and Peru.

Elsewhere,

r-

chaeology

s

telling s more

han

thnohistory.

Afternitiallyocusingn large emple nd ad-

ministrativeenters, rchaeologistsre now

x-

amining

ural

ustainingreas,

with

emarkable

results.

ee,

for

xample,

anders

t al.

(1979)

on the

Basin

f

Mexico,

Culbert nd

Rice

1991)

on theMaya lowlands, nd Fowler 1989)on

Cahokia

n

llinois. vidence

f

human

ccupa-

tion

for the

artistic

antarem

Culture

phase

(Tapajos chiefdom)

n the

lower

Amazon

ex-

tends

over

thousands of

square kilometers,

with

large

nucleated settlements

Roosevelt

1991,

01-02).

Muchof the

rural

recontact

ettlement as

semi-dispersed rancherias),particularly

n

denselypopulatedregions

f Mexico and

the

Andes,probably eflectingoor

food

ransport

efficiency.

ouses were

both

ingle-family

nd

communalpueblos,Huron ong houses,Am-

azon

malocas).

Construction

was of

stone,


10/18

The

Pristine

Myth

377

earth, dobe, daub

and wattle, rass, hides,

brush, ndbark.Much

of

the

dispersed ettle-

mentnot destroyed y

depopulation as con-

centrated by the Spaniards into compact

grid/plaza tyle new towns congregaciones,

reducciones) or dministrativeurposes.

Mounds

James

Parsons

(1985, 161)

has

suggested

that:

"An

apparent mania

for

earth

moving,

landscape ngineering

n

a

grand cale runs

s

a

thread hrough

muchof

New

Worldprehis-

tory." arge uantities f both

arth

nd stone

were

transferredo createvariousraised nd

sunken features, uch as agriculturaland-

forms, ettlementnd ritualmounds, and

causeways.

Moundsofdifferent

hapes and sizes were

constructedhroughoutheAmericas or em-

ples, burials,

ettlement,nd as effigies. he

stone pyramids f Mexico and the

Andes are

well known,but equal

monuments f earth

were built

n

the

Amazon,

he

MidwestU.S.,

and elsewhere.

he

Mississippian eriod om-

plex of

104

mounds at Cahokia

near East St.

Louis supported

30,000 people; the largest,

Monk's Mound, s

currently

0.5

m

high nd

covers6.9 ha. (Fowler 989,90, 192). Cahokia

was the largest ettlement orth f the Rfo

Grande

until

urpassed

by

New

York

City

n

1775.

An

early urvey

stimated at east 0,000

conical, inear,

nd

effigy

ounds"

n

Wiscon-

sin

(Stout 911,24). Overall,

here

must

have

been several

hundred thousand artificial

mounds

n

the

Midwest

nd

South. De

Soto

described

such

features till

n

use in

1539

(Silverberg 968,7).

Thousands f

settlement

and othermoundsdot the savanna

andscape

of Mojos in Bolivia Denevan 1966).At the

mouth f

the

Amazonon Marajo sland, ne

complex

f

forty abitation ounds ontained

more han

0,000

eople;

one

of hese

mounds

is 20 m

high

while

another

s

90 ha

in

area

(Roosevelt 991, 1, 38).

Not all of the various arthworks

cattered

over the Americaswere in use

in

1492.

Many

had been

long abandoned,

but

they

consti-

tuted

conspicuous

lement f the

andscape

of 1492 and some are

still

prominent.

oubt-

less,many

emain

o be

discovered,

nd others

remain nrecognized s human rprehistoric

features.

Roads,Causeways,

nd Trails

Large umbers f

people and settlementse-

cessitated xtensive ystems f overland ravel

routes o facilitatedministration,rade,war-

fare, and social interaction Hyslop 1984;

Trombold 991). Only hintsof their former

prominenceurvive.Manywere simple races

across

deserts

r narrow

aths

ut nto orests.

A

suggestion s to

the importance

f

Amazon

forest rails s the existence of more

than

500 kmof trail

maintained y a singleKayapo

village oday Posey 1985, 149). Some prehis-

toric

ootpaths

ere

so intensivelysed for o

long hat heywerencisednto heground nd

are still

detectable,

s has

recently

een de-

scribed n Costa Rica Sheets nd Sever1991).

Improvedroads,

at times stone-lined nd

drained,

were

constructedver

great

istances

in

the realms fthe

high

ivilizations.he

Inca

road network s

estimated o have measured

about40,000km, xtending

rom

outhern o-

lombia o central hile Hyslop 984, 24). Pre-

historicauseways

raisedroads)

were

built

n

the

tropical

owlands

(Denevan 1991);

one

Maya causeway s 100

km

ong,

nd there re

more

han ,600

km

f

causeways

n

the

Llanos

de

Mojos.

Humboldt

eportedargeprehistoric

causeways n the Orinoco Llanos.Ferdinand

Columbusdescribedroads

on PuertoRico

in

1493.

Gaspar

de

Carvajal, raveling own

the

Amazon

with

Orellana

n

1541,reported high-

ways" penetrating

he forest rom

iver

ank

villages. oseph eAcosta 1880, 1) 171)

n1590

said thatbetweenPeru

and Brazil,

herewere

"waies as much beaten as those betwixt

Salamanca nd Valladolid." rehistoricoads

n

Chaco

Canyon,

New

Mexico

are described

n

Trombold 1991). Some routes

were

so well

established nd located that theyhave re-

mainedroadsto this

day.

Recovery

A

strong

ase

can be

made

for

significant

environmental

ecovery

nd

reduction f cul-

tural eatures

y

he

ate

eighteenthentury

s

a

result f Indian

population

decline.

Henry

Thoreau

1949,

32-37)believed,

based on his

reading f William

Wood,

that the New En-

gland forests f 1633 were moreopen, more

park-like,

ithmore

berries nd more

wildlife,


11/18

378 Denevan

thanThoreau bserved

n

1855.

Cronon

1983,

108), Pyne 1982, 1), Silver 1990, 04),Martin

(1978, 81-82), nd Williams1989, 9) all main-

tain that the eastern forests ecovered nd

filled n s a result f ndian epopulation, ield

abandonment,and reduction n burning.

Whileprobably orrect, hesewriters ive

few

specific examples, so further esearch is

needed. The sixteenth-centuryields nd sa-

vannasof Colombia nd Central merica lso

had reverted o forestwithin

50

years

after

abandonment Parsons1975, 30-31;

Bennett

1968, 54). On his fourth oyage

n

1502-03,

Columbus ailed alongthe north

oastof Pan-

ama (Veragua).

His son

Ferdinand

escribed

landswhichwerewell-peopled,

ull f

houses,

withmany ields, nd open with

ew rees. n

contrast,n 1681 LionelWafer oundmostof

the Caribbean oast of Panama

orest overed

and unpopulated.On the Pacific ide

in

the

eighteenth entury, avannas

were

seldom

mentioned; he main economic activity as

the

ogging

f

tropical edar,

tree

hat

rows

on the sites of

abandoned

fields nd other

disturbancesSauer 1966,132-33, 87-88).

An

earlieroscillation rom orest estruction

o

recovery in the Yucatan is instructive.

Whitmore, t al. (1990,35) estimate

hat he

Maya had modified 5 percent ftheenviron-

ment by A.D. 800, and that following he

Mayan ollapse,forest ecovery

n

the

central

lowlands was nearly complete

when

the

Spaniards

rrived.

The pace of forest egeneration, owever,

varied across the New World.

Much of the

southeasternU.S.

remained

reeless

n

the

1750s

according o Rostlund 1957, 08, 409).

He

notes hat hetangled rush hat

nsnarled

the "Wilderness

ampaign

f 1864

n

Virginia

occupied

the same

land

as

did

CaptainJohn

Smith'sopen groveswithmuchgood ground

betweenwithout

ny

hrubs"'

n

1624; vegeta-

tion

had only partially ecovered

over

240

years.

The

Kentucky

arrens

n contrast ere

largely

eforested

y

he

early

ineteenthen-

tury Sauer 1963,30).

The

Alabama

BlackBelt

vegetationwas describedby

William artram

in

the 1770s

s

a mixture f

forest

nd

grassy

plains, but by

the

nineteenth entury,

here

was

only

10

percentprairie nd

even less in

some

counties

Rostlund 957, 393, 401-03).

Sectionsof coastal forestsneverrecovered,

given

olonist

ressures, ut Sale's (1990, 91)

claim hat the

English

ere well

along

n the

process of eliminating he ancient Eastern

woodlandsfromMaine to the Mississippi" n

the

firstne hundred ears, s an exaggeration.

Wildlife lso

partially ecovered

n

eastern

North mericawith

reducedhunting ressure

from ndians;however, his s also a story et

to be worked ut. The

white-tailedeer appar-

ently eclined n

numbers, robably eflecting

reforestationlus

competition rom ivestock.

Commercial unting

as a factor n the coast,

with 0,000 eer skins

eing hipped

ut

yearly

from harleston y1730 Silver 990, 2). Mas-

sachusetts

nacted closed season on deer as

early s 1694, nd

n

1718 herewas a

three-year

moratoriumn deer

hunting Cronon 1983,

100). Sale (1990, 90) believes

hatbeaver

were

depleted

n

the

Northeast y 1640. Otherfur

bearers,game birds, lk, buffalo,nd carni-

voreswerealso targeted ywhitehunters, ut

muchgame probably

was

in

the process of

recovery

n

many astern

reas until general

reversal fter 700-50.

As

agricultural

ields

hanged

to scrub and

forest,

arthworks

ere

grown

over.

All the

raised

fields

n

Yucatan and

South

America

were

abandoned.

A

large portion

f the

agri-

cultural erraces

n

the Americas

were

aban-

doned

in

the

early

colonial

period (Donkin

1979, 5-38). ntheColca Valley f Peru,mea-

surement n air photos

indicates

1

percent

terrace bandonment

Denevan1988, 8).

Soci-

eties vanished or declined

everywhere

nd

wholevillageswith hem.The

degreeto

which

settlement

eatures

ere

swallowed

p byveg-

etation, ediment,

nd erosion

s

indicated

y

the

difficulty

f

finding

hem

oday.

Machu

Pic-

chu,

a late

prehistoric

ite,

was not rediscov-

ered

until 911.

The renewalof

human

mpact

lso varied

regionally,oming

with he

Revolutionary

ar

in NorthAmerica,withthe rubberboom in

Amazonia,

nd with he

expansion

f coffee

n

southern razil

1840-1930).

he

swamp

ands

of Gulf

Coast Mexicoand

the

Guayas

Basin

of

Ecuador

emained

ostile

nvironmentso

Eu-

ropeans

untilwell nto he nineteenth

entury

or later

Siemens1990;

Mathewson

987).

On

the other

hand, Highland

Mexico-Guatemala

and the

Andes,

with

reater

ndian urvivalnd

with he

establishmentf haciendas nd inten-

sive

mining,

how less evidence

of environ-

mental ecovery.imilarly,ndian ields nthe

Caribbeanwere

rapidly eplacedby European

livestocknd

sugarplantationystems,

nhibit-


12/18

The PristineMyth

379

ing ny ufficient

ecovery.he same s true

f

the

sugar

one of coastalBrazil.

Conclusions

By 492, ndian

ctivity

ad modified

egeta-

tion

nd wildlife,

aused

erosion,

nd created

earthworks,

oads,

and settlements

hrough-

outtheAmericas.

his

may

e

obvious,

ut he

human

mprint

as muchmore

ubiquitous

nd

enduring

han s

usually

ealized. he historical

evidence s

ample,

as are data from

urviving

earthworksnd

archaeology.

ndmuch an be

inferred rom present human

impacts.

The

weight f evidence uggests hat ndian

opu-

lationswere arge,notonly

n

Mexico

nd

the

Andes,butalso inseemingly nattractiveab-

itats uch as the

rainforests

f

Amazonia,

he

swamps

f

Mojos,

and the deserts f

Arizona.

Clearly,

he most

humanized

andscapes

f

the

Americas xisted

n

those

highland egions

where

people

were the

mostnumerous.Here

were

the large tates, haracterized

yurban

centers,

oad

systems,

ntensive

griculture,

dispersed ut

relatively

ense rural ettlement

pattern f hamlets nd

farmsteads,

nd wide-

spread vegetation

nd soil modification

nd

wildlife epletion.Therewereother, maller

regions

hat hared ome of these

characteris-

tics,

uch

s thePueblo ands

n

he outhwest-

ern

U.S., the Sabana de

Bogota

n

highland

Colombia,

nd the central

mazon

loodplain,

where

built

andscapes

were

locally

ramatic

and are

still bservable.

inally,

herewere he

immense

rasslands, eserts,

mountains,

nd

forests

lsewhere,

with

populations hat

were

sparse or

moderate,

with

andscape mpacts

that

mostly

ere

ephemeral

r not bvious

but

nevertheless

ignificant,articularlyorvege-

tation nd wildlife,s in Amazonia nd the

northeastern.S.

In

addition,andscapes rom

the

moredistant

ast

urvivedo

1492

nd even

to

1992,

uchas thoseofthe

rrigation

tates f

north coast

Peru,

the

Classic

Maya,

the

Mississippian

mound

builders,

and the

Tiwanaku

mpire

f Lake

Titicaca.

This

ssay

has

ranged ver he

hemisphere,

an

enormous

area, making generalizations

about and

providingxamples

f

Indian and-

scape

transformations of 1492.

Examples

f

some of the survivingultural eatures re

shown

n

Figure

.

Ideally,

series

of hemi-

spheric

maps

should

be

provided o

portray

the spatial

patterns f the differentypes of

impacts nd

cultural eatures, ut

such maps

are not feasiblenor

would theybe accurate

givenpresent nowledge.

here re a fewrel-

evantregionalmaps,

however, hat an be re-

ferred o.For xample, ee Butzer 1990, 3,45)

for ndian settlement

tructures/mounds

nd

subsistence atterns

nthe U.S.; Donkin 1979,

23) foragriculturalerracing;

oolittle

1990,

109)for anal rrigation

n Mexico; Parsons nd

Denevan

1967) or aised ields n South

Amer-

ica; Trombold 1991)

for various road net-

works;Hyslop 1984,

4) for the Inca roads;

Hardoy 1968, 9) for he

most ntenseurban-

ization

n Latin merica; nd Gordon

1957, 9)

for

anthropogenic

avannas

n

northern

o-

lombia.

Thepristinemyth annotbe laidat the feet

of Columbus.While he

spoke of

"Paradise,"

his

was

clearly humanized aradise.

He de-

scribed

Hispaniola nd Tortuga s densely

op-

ulated and "completely ultivated

ike

the

countryside

round Cordoba" (Colon

1976,

165). He also noted hat

the slands re not o

thickly

ooded as to be impassable," uggest-

ing openings

from learing nd burning Co-

lumbus 961, ).

The roots fthepristinemyth

ie

n

part

with

early bservers naware fhuman mpactshat

maybe obviousto scholars

oday,

articularly

for

vegetation

nd wildlife.8 ut

even many

earthworks

uch as raisedfields

have only

re-

cently een discovered

Denevan 1966; 1980).

Equallymportant, ost

f our eyewitness

e-

scriptions

fwilderness ndempty

ands

ome

from later ime,particularly

750-1850

when

interiorands

began to be explored

nd occu-

pied by

Europeans. y 650,

ndian

opulations

in the

hemisphere

ad been reducedby

bout

90

percent,

while

by

1750

European

numbers

were not yetsubstantial nd settlement ad

onlybegun

to

expand.

As a

result,

ields

had

been

abandoned,

while ettlements

anished,

forests

ecovered,

nd

savannas

etreated.

he

landscapedid appear

to be a sparsely opu-

latedwilderness.

his s

the

mage

onveyed y

Parkman

n

the nineteenth

entury,

akeless

n

1950,

nd Shetler

s

recently

s

1991.

Therewas

some

European mpact,

f

course,

but it was

localized.After

750and

especially

fter

850,

populations

reatlyxpanded,

resources

were

more intensivelyxploited, and European

modification

f the environment

ccelerated,

continuing

o the

present.


13/18

380

Denevan

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-.11',

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--':

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,

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-

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.

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.,

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It s possible

to concludenot

only hat

the

virgin orestwas

not

encountered nthe six-

teenth nd

seventeenth

enturies; but hat] t

was

invented

n

the late

eighteenthnd early

nineteenth

enturies" Pyne

1982,46). How-ever,"paradoxical s it

may eem,

therewas

undoubtedlymuch

more forest

rimeval' n

1850 than n 1650" Rostlund

957,409). Thus

the "invention" f an

earlierwilderness s

in

partunderstandable

nd is not

simply delib-

erate

creation

which ennobled the

American

enterprise,s suggested y Bowden 1992, 0-

23).

In

any event,

while

pre-European and-

scape alteration as been

demonstrated re-


14/18

The PristineMyth

381

viously,

ncluding y

everal

geographers,

he

case has mainly een made for

egetation

nd

mainly oreasternNorth

America.

As

shown

here, he

argument

s

also applicable o most

of the restof the

New

World, ncluding

he

humid ropics, nd involvesmuchmore han

vegetation.

The human

mpact

n environments

not

simply processof

ncreasinghange

or

deg-

radation

n

response

to

linear

population

growth nd economic

xpansion.

t

s

instead

interrupted

y periods f reversal

nd

ecolog-

ical rehabilitations cultures

ollapse,popula-

tions

decline,

wars

occur,

and

habitats re

abandoned.

mpacts

may

be

constructive,

e-

nign, r

degenerativeallsubjective

oncepts),

but

change

s

continual

t

variable ates

ndin

differentirections.Evenmild impacts nd

slow changes are

cumulative,nd

the

long-

term

ffects

an

be dramatic.

s

it

possible hat

the thousands

f yearsof human

ctivity

e-

fore

Columbus created more

change

in

the

visible

landscape than has

occurred subse-

quently

with

European

settlement and

resource

xploitation?

he answer s

probably

yes

for

most

regions

or he next 50

years

r

so,

and for ome

regions ight p

to the

pres-

ent ime.

American

lora, auna,

nd

landscape

were slowlyEuropeanizedfter 492,but be-

fore hat

hey

had

already

een Indianized. It

is

upon this imprint

hat the more familiar

Euro-American

andscapewas grafted, ather

than created

anew" (Butzer

990,28). What

does all this

meanfor

rotectionistendencies

today?

Much

ofwhat

s

protected

r

proposed

to be

protected

rom

uman

disturbance ad

native

people present, and

environmental

modificationccurred

ccordinglynd in

part

is

still

etectable.

The

pristine

mage

of

1492

seems

to

be

a

myth,hen, n imagemore pplicable o 1750,

followingndian

decline, although

recovery

had

onlybeen

partial ythatdate. There s

some

substance

o

this

rgument,nd

t

hould

holdup

under hescrutinyf further

nvesti-

gation

f the

considerable vidence

vailable,

both

writtennd

in

the

ground.

Acknowledgments

The

field

nd

library

esearch

hatprovidedhe

backgroundor his

ssaywas undertakenver

many

yearsnLatin merica, erkeley,nd Madison.Men-

tors

who

have

been

particularly

nfluentialre

Carl

0.

Sauer,

Erhard

Rostlund, amesJ.

Parsons, nd

Woodrow

orah,

ll

nvestigators

f

topics

discussed

here.

Notes

1. Sauer had a life-longnterestn this opic 1963,

1966, 971, 980).

2. See Nash 1967) n the "romantic ilderness" f

America;Bowden 1992, -12) on the invented

tradition"

f the

"primeval

orest" f New En-

gland; nd Manthorne1989,10-21) n artists'm-

ages

of

the ropical

Eden" of

South

America. ay

(1953,329) providesnumerous uotations rom

Parkman

n wilderness" nd "vast,"

virgin,"nd

"icontinuous"orest.

3. For xample, 1991 dvertisementor Time-Life

video refers o

"the unspoiled

beaches, forests,

and mountains f

an

earlierAmerica" nd "the

pristine

hores f

ChesapeakeBay

n

1607."

4. On the

other

hand,

he

ability

f ndians o

clear

large reeswith nefficienttone xes, assisted y

girdlingnd deadeningby fire,mayhave been

overestimated Denevan forthcoming).

ilver

(1990, 1) notes hat he upland orests

f

Carolina

were

argely

ninhabitedor hisreason.

5. Similar

onclusions

were reached

by

foresters

Maxwell

1910) and Day (1953); by geographers

Sauer 1963), rown1948,11-19), ostlund1957),

and Bowden 1992); nd by environmental

isto-

rians

yne 1982,45-51), ronon 1983,

9-51), nd

Silver

1990, 9-66).

6. B. Williams

1989,730)

finds

trong

vidence

of

rural verpopulation66 percent

n

poor

crop

years,

1

percent

n

averageyears)

n

the Basin f

Mexicovillage fAsunci6n, a. A.D. 1540,which

was

probably notunique but a widespread

he-

nomenon."For a

contraryonclusion,

hat he

Aztecs

id not xceed

carryingapacity,

ee Ortiz

de Montellano1990,119).

7.

Highland uatemala rovides nother rehistoric

example

f "severehuman isturbance"nvolving

deforestation

nd "massive" oil erosion slopes)

and

depositionvalleys)Murdy 990,

86).

For he

central

ndes

there

s

some evidence

hatmuch

of the

puna

zone

(3200-4500m),

now

grass

nd

scrub,

was

deforested

n

prehistoric

imes

White

1985).

8. The

English

olonists

n

part ustified

heir

ccu-

pation f ndian andon thebasis that uch and

had

not

been

"subdued" nd therefore

as "land

free o

be

taken"

Wilson 992, 6).

References

Acosta,Joseph

Jose]

e.

1880 1590]. The natural

and moral history

f the Indies. Trans.

E.

Gimston, akluyt ociety, ols. 60,

61. London.

Alcorn,. B. 1981. Huastec

noncrop esourceman-

agement:

mplicationsor rehistoric

ain orest

management. uman

Ecology :395-417.

Anderson, . C. 1990. The historic ole of fire n

the

NorthAmerican

rassland.

n Fire n

North

American

allgrass rairies,

d. S.

L.

Collins nd


15/18

382

Denevan

L.

L.

Wallace,pp. 8-18. Norman:Universityf

OklahomaPress.

Bakeless, . 1950. The eyes of discovery: hepag-

eant

of

North mericas seen

by he

first

xplor-

ers.

New

York:

J.

B. Lippincott.

Balke,W. 1987. Cultural orests f the Amazon.

Garden 1:12-14, 2.

1989. The culture fAmazonian orests.n

Advances

n

Economic otany, ol. 7, pp. 1-21.

New

York:New

YorkBotanical arden.

1era sesion - the pristine myth - william denevan

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