The Little Ice Age must have put the skids to North American indigenous cultures such as the Mississippian Culture, the Tiwanaku Civilization around Lake Titicaca in present-day Bolivia, and the Ancestral Puebloan Culture in the three centuries between 1130 and 1430 AD. I think it goes without saying that it did for the Viking settlement in Greenland. European disease was also a significant factor in depopulating North America.
To follow to the tomb the last of [t]his race and to tread on the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortifications of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated or has disappeared to make room for the existing savage tribes. Nor is there any thing in this which, upon a comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be regretted.
No one sticks up for Andrew Jackson anymore because of the institutional racism he represented so well, but his is the first quote that comes to my mind concerning a hypothetical economic collapse prior to European settlement of North America.
The population of North America had been reduced well below the carrying capacity of the continent somewhat before Europeans got their act together here.
That they did. I donāt remember enough to put any kind of number to it, but between Columbus and other Spanish explorers making initial contact and the time you get to Jamestown, itās widely believed* that a basically apocolyptic wave of disease killed off a substantial (probably more than half) proportion of the native population. So Europeans walked in to what looked to them a largely unpeopled wilderness, but it was really the remnants of a carefully managed landscape. The managers died not long before the European settlers got there.
Me, too. It oughtnāt to be that hard. Whatās wrong with us?
Try this:
After around 1130, North America had significant climatic change in the form of a 300-year drought called the Great Drought.[27] This also led to the collapse of the Tiwanaku civilization around Lake Titicaca in present-day Bolivia.[28] The contemporary Mississippian culture also collapsed during this period. Confirming evidence dated between 1150 and 1350 has been found in excavations of the western regions of the Mississippi Valley, which show long-lasting patterns of warmer, wetter winters and cooler, drier summers.
Sorry, I was re-editing my post when yours came through.
Thereās a lot of goosefoot growing here in NW Arkansas and it makes a tasty, nutritious snack. I once found a very large goosefoot plant tht I later identified as Mexican goosefoot. Not nearly as tasty and as I recall, it was said that it should only be eaten in small quantities.
Only going back to 750 AD seems a bit short sighted, as does considering humans as the only vectors and limiting the involvement of black bears to berries.
For those interested in forests āmanagedā by indigenous peoples, check out the study from a decade ago concerning the Amazon basin.
For those interested in lost crops, there is more information out there too. The SW US was a Savanna in recent history and agriculture was practiced by the peoples there.
Iāve been harvesting Stinging Nettles in the spring and trying them. Put them in my coffee maker with tea, dried mushrooms, coffee and chicory root for years. Scrambled eggs with spinach and reconstituted mushrooms. Canāt get enough of mushrooms!
I think the idea is that there are too many food forests throughout the amazon for the indigenous peoples not to have helped make them and that there definitely used to be a large civilization that lived on the amazon basin. Recent lidar shows immense buildings geometrically designed and laid out irrigation areas. Almost all the trees near these are fruit / medicinal trees.
Its amazing how much we grow that is edible that we have no idea about.
The original Native Americans in my family thought in terms of generation and in hundreds and thousands of years. The buffalo were native americans version of cattle but not used in my family as far as i know, the trees were used for food eg. Pawpaw, persimmon, acorns, walnuts, butternut, etcā¦Deer, rabbit, etc. were extra meat and hides. Some natives ate deer etc only when the buffalo were roaming elsewhere. Family members have never sprayed anything and still harvest wild greens etc. Every year. In my family most of us still grow gardens and frequently we plant wild plants we want to harvest some years down the road. My aunts and uncles still eat from my grandfathers trees. My grandfather was eating nuts, berries etc. From the native americans plantings. Never let anyone convince you it was an accident! You are now living in a neglected garden. Kansas had no trees because the native americans burned it off for their livestock the buffalo to have grass to eat. The three sisters were grown together always beans, squash , and corn. Did they work 8-5? Did they use chemical? Did they need modern medicine? Did they have an erosion problem? Was anything polluted? There were no taxes. They lived just as long as we do in my family without anything we have. They had no large standing armies which is why they were taken over. Fish flourished in the streams but many natives would not eat them they did however use them for corn fertilizer. The natives frequently did suffer great hardships when there were crop failures. The buffalo were killed to a point of being nearly extinct to conquer the natives. Diseases such as small pox were brought as gifts in terms of blankets to kill them. Many of my family were married to whites and never went to a reservation but the ones who were members of full tribal council in oklahoma im sure are still there today. Im whiter than most everyone now but still 1/16th native. Many skills have now been lost but they passed on what they could to those who wanted to know. Im a leftover of what was passed down from hundreds or thousands of years. I grew a pumpkin as a child that grew wild with no fertilizer or tending that insects would not bother. The pumpkin that looked much like connecticut field pumpkin was lost and like the people in my family will not come back and the world is a worse place for the loss. My grandparents did pass many unique plants to me i still grow to this day Blackberries by the gallons. A chief from another tribe talked to me many years ago about the cherokee and why we grew blackberries always but i could not answer most of his questions. His tribe used the blackberries when they named their children but unfortunately his people could not speak his language and lost all their crops through time. My grand father told me before he died i was the last person in the family with his knowledge and it will die with me. Ive shared what i could with others so i believe some of it will continue to be around after me. Many neighbors told me strange varities of blackberries and other plants began appearing on their properties around 25 years ago odly about the time i arrived. Wild bee populations also returned and many wild greens. The blackberries i grow spread quickly by seed through birds genetically slightly different each time. Some would say a person such as me has an agenda to help those ancient heirloom berries survive but the truth is its a mutual relationship my family has helped them through the last hundred or so years and they have helped us. Both plants and people are better off for the relationship. Many neighboring families commented to me wild blackberries showed up which they harvest every year. I think to myself my family must be proud because i passed on exactly what i intended to and will pass on everything else i have a chance to. Permaculture natural food forests are always my goal Non traditional Orchard methods. All relationships in nature are symbiotic Plant symbiotic relationships. Many who grow my families blackberries quickly realize 15 feet tall + blackberries are very hard to control as @39thparallel has witnessed Blackberries by the gallons - #52 by 39thparallel. There is more to it than blackberries Fungi Friend or Foe? or fungi or grass Cover crop and mulch recommendations . Many relationships of crops, fungi, bacteria etc. Are not widely understood and its unlikely they will be at least anytime soon Anyone finding fall mushrooms?. Some fragile and mysterious natural relationships once disrupted can take 20-100 years or longer to correct if possible at all.
Many of these relationships are not widely understood but we can observe some things Morels will be popping soon. There is always a way to correct soil and other things but it takes time Conserving valuable resources for late season plants. Its true some crops have been lost to time but we have also gained others equally as valuable https://growingfruit.org/t/carmine-jewell-cherry-yields-increasing-with-age
Iāve said it elsewhere but will say it again when european people got off the boats they believed they were looking at untouched wilderness. Think they were actually standing in the biggest garden they ever saw. Not understanding what they were seeing they began to plan their own gardens. Naturally conflicts occurred the same as if someone was removing strawberry plants and planting radishes in your strawberry garden. Imagine how you would feel when they ate your cow thats how natives felt about buffalo or deer. Some crops like corn started here they were and are an important food. There are many lost types of corn that were at one time grown by natives.
in the area where I grew up you could see it. old trees bent to mark paths to hickory stands and wild fruit patches. and the remains of even older trees that had been similarly bent. hickory stands that looked like an orchard but so far back in the woods nobody had cut or built there in living memory times two.
here you can also see it, the scrub is edged by rivers, by places of larger stands of edible trees and plants, it looks like planned areas but itās untouched basically.
I lived in the siuslaw forest for a long while and there the river had been obviously built to enable fish traps, redirected to areas with edible trees and fruit, it looks āuntouchedā only until you realize how thereās been places cut to facilitate elk and deer hunting, fishing, crawdadding, food sources. after being there a while you get the feeling youāre in someone elseās garden, definitely
The residue of Amerindian presence can be found in the diversity of species of trees producing edible foods. There is a place on the Alabama river near Minter Alabama where 5 different species of hickory can be found growing. I found Nutmeg, Mockernut, Bitternut, Pignut, and Shagbark hickories in a mixed stand with a few other tree species. The only way this could happen is for humans to transport the nuts and get them started growing together. One of the ways to find old Indian camps is to look at the trees growing there today.
The Northern Amazonian Arawaks, soon to become the Taino, transported manioc, tobacco, pineapple and various other fruits and plants all the way up to Cuba. Meanwhile, the Amerindian trade routes brought domesticated Maya/Aztec corn to the Andes and cherry tomatoes from the Andean foothills to be domesticated by the Aztecs, their tomatl, etcā¦
We have read that the land where we live between two of the Finger Lakes was once abundant with basswood (Tilia americana), also known as American linden. It was a very utilitarian tree. One of its names was bee-tree, for its fragrant blossoms. A paste made from the seeds and flowers was used as a sweetener. The blossoms were also dried for tea. Tea from the bark was also used for medicinal purposes. Its fruit was small, but edible, if of faint flavor. Its leaves are also edible. It was mostly used for its soft, lightweight wood. It could be carved into cups, bowls, and toys. The inner bark was collected and made into bast fiber for weaving into many important useful things: twine, rope, and thread; baskets and cradles; belts and other clothing; building material; and fishnets.
I think you all would lik the book ā1491: the americas before columbusā. they covered some of how the āindiansā managed the forests to produce food.