Tree-Ring Records of Pre-Reservation Ndée (Western Apache) Fire Stewardship and Niche Construction in East-Central Arizona 1600-1870 CE

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Tree-Ring Materials as a Basis for Cultural Interpretations" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the Southwest US, well-replicated fire histories suggest that abundant lightning and climate conditions drove frequent low-severity wildfires independent of human activities even as ethnography indicates that highly mobile, small groups of Western Apache (Ndée) foragers used fire in myriad land use contexts. Here we leverage published and unpublished fire-scar records from Ndée traditional territory in central and eastern Arizona (N = 25 sites, N = 669 trees) to demonstrate that historical fire regimes in Western Apache traditional territory were overwhelmingly influenced by Ndée cultural burning. Our tree-ring synthesis shows significantly lower mean fire return intervals in Ndée territory than elsewhere in the region for centuries before the establishment of reservations (1600-1870 CE). Despite the heightened fire activity, fires were largely small and asynchronous, occurred disproportionately in late April and May, when Apaches spent significant time in these pine forests, and occurred independent of climate drivers. This suggests that Ndée fire stewardship created a patchwork of nearly annual small, spring fires that inhibited natural fire spread and limited the influence of drought on fire activity. Our work shows that even relatively small, highly mobile populations of forager-gardeners had significant influence on pre-Euroamerican fire regimes despite abundant natural ignitions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Tree-Ring Materials as a Basis for Cultural Interpretations   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51019