Though people have used fire to alter landscapes across North America for millennia, there remains a debate whether Native Americans altered California’s mountainous forests to create an anthropogenic landscape. We use paleoecological reconstructions and paleolandscape modeling to test whether climate or Native Americans were the driving force of pre-historic forest composition change. Understanding pre-historic forests and land-use legacies becomes more critical in a warming climate as wildfires become deadlier and more extensive. We performed a sub-centennial pollen and charcoal reconstruction for the last 1200 years using standard techniques. We then used a forest succession model to quantitatively test drivers of change: climatic fires only, or the addition of Native American-set surface fires. Hypothesized periods of anthropogenic burning were inferred from the pollen record (more open canopy taxa than climatically expected). Modeled outputs were compared against the paleorecord to determine which drivers best explained changes in the empirical record. Periods of occupation from the archaeological record were compared to hypothesized periods of burning. Pollen and charcoal reconstructions showed intermittent periods inconsistent with climatic expectations. Modeled scenarios including surface fires set by Native Californians during these periods had the greatest correlation with the observed paleoecological record. Inferred periods of burning corresponded temporally with site used based on the archaeological record. California’s pre-historic forests were altered by the traditional use of fire as a tool by Native Americans. Modeled outputs hint that incorporating indigenous resources management practices could improve forest health and decrease the likelihood of catastrophic wildfires.

中文翻译：

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美国加利福尼亚州金鳟鱼荒野地区美洲原住民在哥伦布前焚烧的古生态和古景观建模支持

尽管数千年来人们一直在用火来改变北美的景观，但美洲原住民是否改变了加利福尼亚的山地森林以创造人为景观仍然存在争议。我们使用古生态重建和古景观模型来测试气候或美洲原住民是否是史前森林组成变化的驱动力。随着野火变得更加致命和蔓延，了解史前森林和土地利用遗产在气候变暖的情况下变得更加重要。在过去的 1200 年里，我们使用标准技术进行了次百年的花粉和木炭重建。然后，我们使用森林演替模型来定量测试变化的驱动因素：仅气候火灾，或添加美洲原住民设置的地表火灾。从花粉记录（比气候预期的开放的冠层分类群更多）推断出人为燃烧的假设时期。将模拟输出与古记录进行比较，以确定哪些驱动因素最能解释经验记录中的变化。考古记录中的占领时期与假设的燃烧时期进行了比较。花粉和木炭重建显示出与气候预期不一致的间歇期。模拟场景，包括这些时期由加利福尼亚原住民设置的地表火灾，与观察到的古生态记录具有最大的相关性。推断的燃烧时期与根据考古记录使用的地点在时间上一致。加利福尼亚的史前森林因美洲原住民传统使用火作为工具而改变。