“We Used to Always Burn That”: Anthropogenic Fire Regimes and Cultural Resilience at túl’mǝn’

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Cultivating Food, Land, and Communities" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

On September 7, 2020, the Cold Springs Fire ignited on the Colville Indian Reservation during a significant wind event, with flames racing southward 50 miles overnight, crossing the Columbia River and igniting the Pearl Hill Fire. These fires eventually charred a combined 413,673 acres, including some of the last vestiges of Washington’s fragile shrub steppe ecosystem. Not unexpectedly, the obliteration of both invasive and disproportionately dense stands of native vegetation allowed the return of countless plant species of cultural significance to the Moses Columbia Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation of whom they are a member. The subsequent resurgence of subsistence gathering within, and the recollection of ancestral anthropogenic burning practices and teachings specific to, this area speak to the regenerative qualities of fire in landscapes long managed through its controlled use. As climate change related wildfire events become more frequent and more devastating, the recovery of knowledge related to the management of the shrub steppe through the anthropogenic use of fire becomes ever more critical. How might archaeological and historical inquiry support Indigenous efforts to reinstitute anthropogenic burning regimes in support of cultural resurgence and ecosystem resilience?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Cultivating Food, Land, and Communities

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38634.0