Forgotten Fires
Subtitle: Native Americans and the Transient Wilderness
Contributors: Henry T. Lewis (Editor); M. Kat Anderson (Editor)
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: November 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780806134239
Subjects: Conservation of the environment; Ecological science, the Biosphere; Indigenous peoples; Fire use; Ecological Anthropology; Native American Anthropology; History; History - General History; Indians of North America; History: American; USA; Native American; Agriculture; Ecology
First sentence: FIRES WARMED HEARTHS, heightened the palatability of meats and vegetables, aided nighttime fishing, hollowed out tree trunks for making dugout canoes, felled mighty oaks for earth lodge construction, and kept predators at bay.
Description: "A common stereotype about American Indians is that for centuries they lived in static harmony with nature in a pristine wilderness that remained unchanged until European colonization. Omer C. Stewart was one of the first anthropologists to recognize that Native Americans made significant impact across a wide range of environments. Most important, they regularly used fire to manage plant communities and associated animal species through varied and localized habitat burning.

In Forgotten Fires, editors Henry T. Lewis and M. Kat Anderson present Stewart's original research and insights, presented in the 1950s yet still provocative today."--BOOK JACKET.