NATIVE AMERICANS
Clovis Hunters
Clovis hunters entered the New World -- and the West Gulf Coastal Plain -- 13,000 years ago at the end of the last glaciation, long before the present climate and biota were established. Man was not the only big mammal on the scene during the Pleistocene/Holocene and when he arrived he had to share space with mammoth, ground sloth, camel, and giant bison, among others. But relatively soon after his arrival, the megafauna went extinct. Whether man eliminated the megafauna, as apparently usually occurs soon after human colonization of a land mass formerly lacking humans, or the habitat was altered by changing climate and the megafauna died off naturally, or both, remains a hotly debated matter.
Hunter-Gatherers
Cultures following Clovis were small, mobile bands with a well-developed generalized hunting and gathering economy that was based on local resources such as hickory, pecan, scurf-pea tubers, and acorns, persimmon fruits, various berries, and animal protein such as deer, turtles, small mammals, fish, mussels, and bird. About 4500 years ago, at least four plants --- squash, sunflower, marsh elder or sumpweed, and goosefoot --- all widespread in the eastern United States, may have been domesticated and cultivated in eastern North America. Certainly these plants were intensively collected. At this time also, some populations became sedentary or semi-sedentary and began constructing mounds. However, horticulture appears to have played a small role in their economies and most Indians continued to depend mainly on wild foods. Farming may not have supplanted hunting and gathering until perhaps 2200 years ago, when three more seed crops --- knotweed, maygrass, and little barley --- again all widespread in the eastern United States --- were cultivated.
The Advent of Horticulture
Maize, beans, and squash horticulture did not reach the southeast until relatively late, perhaps between one and two thousand years ago, and then was not wide spread until about 1000 years ago when these plants supplanted the native cultivars. The Indians of the West Gulf Coastal Plain, --- at least in the central regions --- like other Mississippian peoples, became river floodplain hoe-horticulturists who tilled the floodplains of all the major river systems of the southeast. Plants were “intercropped” (i.e., grown mixed together in fields) or were grown in monospecific fields. Native peoples of the West Gulf Coastal Plain also continued to gather wild foods such as acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, dewberries, grapes, and persimmons, and since they lacked domesticated animals to supply animal protein, fat, and hides, they continued to hunt a wide variety of animals including deer, rabbit, bison, turkey and other birds, squirrel, fish, reptiles, and beaver, often in the uplands above the river floodplain. By 800 years ago, maize had become the dominant staple, except on the western edge of the West Gulf Coastal Plain where horticulture was minimal and hunting and gathering remained the predominant economy.
Ecological Impacts of Early Hunting and Horticulture
It has been suggested that about one hectare of land was required for each person for this type of hoe-horticulture, which would mean that significant deforestation occurred along rivers. The absence of domestic animals also may have placed a localized strain on animal populations. But the impact of pre-Columbian peoples on the North American landscape is uncertain and will remain so until these cultures are much better understood. When did man enter America? Did man kill off the megafauna or did the megafauna die from natural causes, or both? What was the pre-Columbian population of North America? What resource exploitation characterized Indian cultures and did it put a strain on resources and reshape all landscapes? Did man usurp all natural fire regimes and, using fire, manage all North American landscapes or did man simply augment natural lightning-ignited fire? None of these questions has been answered.
EUROPEANS
The impact on the southeast of native peoples can only be speculated upon. That of Europeans is clear. The most dramatic event in North America since the end of the ice age, the initial arrival of humans, and the die-off of the megafauna, must surely be the arrival of Europeans. Within a hundred years of European contact, a large percentage of the Indian population perished through disease and conquest, and large tracts of horticultural land were abandoned, leading to substantial regrowth of forests. By 1750, the land was sparsely populated and wide open to European immigration.
There has been a tremendous increase in population in North America from perhaps two million in 1700 to 310 million in 2000, with almost half the increase since 1950 and over 90% since 1850, when there were only one billion people worldwide. Today there are over six billion. In the West Gulf Coastal Plain, there were only about 200 “whites and blacks” in 1685 and perhaps 3,500 in 1806. In 2000, there were approximately 11,300,000 people or 45 per sq km. The population is probably 50 to 250 times larger that it was in 1492.
Eastern North America had an original forest of about 170 million hectares. Today only 10 million hectares remain and most of this is degraded and highly fragmented. Of the southeastern part of the United States that formerly supported 37 million hectares of longleaf pine, only 3% still does so today, and of that, only about 40 hectares remain in virgin or near virgin condition. None of the vast shortleaf and loblolly pine forests remains in virgin condition: most were cut or were allowed to degenerate by suppressing fire, a natural part of the environment. 99% of prairies have been eliminated, 50% of wetlands have been destroyed, 98% of streams have been either destroyed or badly degraded, 97% of longleaf pine forests have been removed, 100% of virgin pine cut.
Alteration Of Water Systems
The first stage of altering natural water systems began with the destruction of the beaver for pelts, which resulted in runoff of major inland reservoirs. Damming, channeling, and leveeing rivers and streams continues and huge impoundments now exist where the Sabine and Angelina rivers once flowed. The Great Raft on the Red River was removed between 1830 and 1873, and, most recently, the Red River has been divided into a series of locks with the result that the river is no longer red and the plant communities along the river are not riparian but lake-edge.
Use Of Fire
How European settlers used fire is unclear. They did practice extensive “woodsburning” until the 1920’s and 1930’s, when the forest industry began to take control of most land and when, aided by the federal government, fire suppression became universal. Where prescribed fire is used in management, almost all fires are confined to the non-growing season and are ignited generally under conditions clearly atypical of the natural fire regime.
Prospects For Management and Conservation
Estimates of the current rate of deterioration and destruction vary depending on measurement criteria. An example that is well documented because of its economic importance is the reduction of the vast longleaf pine forests that once characterized much of the West Gulf Coastal Plain. These were reduced to 22% of their original extent by 1935, and today only 12% of that 22% remains, most in very poor condition.
After four centuries of Euroamerican presence, even the most conservative estimates of natural habitat remaining indicate a precarious future. Many historic plant communities have ceased to exist, and others hang in the balance. Very few plant communities remain in pristine condition. In many cases, the change has been so thorough that there is nothing “natural” left. The forests of both the flood plains and the uplands of the southeastern United States were literally flattened during the last two centuries. Timber was ruthlessly exploited in a prevailing atmosphere of “cut and get out.” And whatever had been the natural fire regime in the predominantly fire-maintained landscape of the West Gulf Coastal Plain was disrupted or modified.
In order to preserve and properly manage the small amount of the West Gulf Coastal Plain that remains, we need a great deal more information. The potential for acquiring this information is being lost at an amazing rate and soon there will be little or no hope of learning what was here and how it functioned. A better understanding of our flora, its distribution, communities, and landscapes is required: work that has just begun.
