The Mountain Path: Foraging Strategies and Inter-species symbiosis in the Beartooth Mountains, Montana

Summary

This is an abstract from the "A Further Discussion on the Role of Archaeology in Resource and Public Land Management" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Contemporary public land and wilderness management strategies in North America have long indulged the myth of the pristine, untouched ecosystem devoid of human interaction. Modern wilderness areas of the mountain West are not devoid of human influence; rather they represent ecosystems in which an apex species was forcibly removed. Ethological and cultural interactions are limited in modern management practices, which focus on modern anthropogenic influences on the ecosystem. The myth of wilderness frames cultural and human influence as external from—or impactful to—the ecosystem, yet evidence of human behavior and interactions are imprinted throughout these landscapes. This evidence displays continuity of human habitation for thousands of years. Archaeological research in the high elevations of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem suggests that mountains are culturally manipulated landscapes, formed through interspecies interaction and bio-cultural symbiosis. Evidence of plant resource manipulation, cultural landscape burning, and interspecies bio-cultural interaction demonstrate the need to treat past anthropogenic and bio-cultural symbiotic influences as part of these ecosystems. Furthermore, the influence of these bio-cultural behaviors and the removal of their effects from the ecosystem should be addressed in future considerations on the health and management of public lands and resources.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A Further Discussion on the Role of Archaeology in Resource and Public Land Management   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36128.0