NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Northeastern United States Historical Descriptions of Past Indigenous Burning since 1500 CE

Background: The extent of past Indigenous cultural burning in the eastern US remains contested. Historical documents (e.g., early histories, journals, letters, and reports) contain descriptions of burning. Scholars have summarized descriptions, but few have compiled them into databases. Aims: This paper presents efforts to compile descriptions of past Indigenous burning in the eastern US and early results from mapped descriptions. Methods: Utilizing previously-cited descriptions and those discovered from digitized historical texts, the current dataset mapped >250 descriptions of burning in the northeastern US. Most were historical summaries from 19th-century authors, and fewer were firsthand observations from the 17th–19th centuries. Descriptions are shared as a GIS data layer, a tabular file, and an interactive web map. Key results: Descriptions correspond with fire-adapted vegetation, and clusters of descriptions suggest burning over large extents (e.g., southern New England, western New York). Estimated dates of burning or initial Euro-American settlement show an east-west succession in Indigenous fire exclusion and replacement with Euro-American burning. Conclusions: Historical descriptions suggest regional-extent influence upon past forested ecosystems, but the veracity of descriptions should be carefully evaluated. Implications: This project provides a dataset for further study of Indigenous burning and comparison with other methodologies for historical cultural fire reconstruction.