Or will they get a pass for being ancients who didn't know better than to not change anything around them?
The ancient humans that once lived here did not seem to farm or build permanent homes. Instead, they inhabited caves and rock shelters along the coast for certain parts of the year, likely moving with the wet and dry seasons.
Despite the 'low-impact' of their lifestyle, researchers were still able to demonstrate extensive alteration of the landscape by these ancient communities using satellite data.
Across all 300 square miles of the territory sampled, roughly 17 percent of the land showed lasting changes likely made by humans.
The impact is much fainter than what we are seeing currently due to human activity, but the environmental changes are surprisingly widespread for such a small, mobile society.
"We underestimate the impacts that non-agriculture societies have on shaping landscapes. These are subtle, but can be discovered," says archaeologist Kristina Douglass from Penn State University.
"Looking at landscapes across the world, we find that people modified more of the world than we thought before."
Part of me wants to send in a comment: "Well, DUH."
4 comments:
Yes, those dirt mounds certainly had zero environmental impact, right? And nothing says we were 'kangz' like a huge pile of dirt.
There were some Indian tribes in the Southwest that did some impressive irrigation to grow some crops and such, but yes, this nonsense that the natives had zero impact on the environment is nonsense.
was there an actual link to the referenced article buried in your post? I often have difficulty picking the link out amongst your other text.
Link fixed, somehow it didn't go the first time
Ancient middens found along the Chesapeake Bay showed indians scavenged oyster beds until depleted and then moved on to greener pastures.
They also murdered the indians who were there before them to take their place.
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