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Fire and vegetation shifts in the Americas at the vanguard of Paleoindian migration

August 15, 2011

Across North and South America, the final millennia of the Pleistocene saw dramatic changes in climate, vegetation, fauna, fire regime, and other local and regional paleo-environmental characteristics. Rapid climate shifts following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) exerted a first-order influence, but abrupt postglacial shifts in vegetation composition, vegetation structure, and fire regime also coincided with human arrival and transformative faunal extinctions in the Americas. We propose a model of post-glacial vegetation change in response to climatic drivers, punctuated by local fire regime shifts in response to megaherbivore-driven fuel changes and anthropogenic ignitions. The abrupt appearance of humans, disappearance of megaherbivores, and resulting changes in New World fire systems were transformative events that should not be dismissed in favor of climate-only interpretations of post-glacial paleo-environmental shifts in the Americas. Fire is a mechanism by which small human populations can have broad impacts, and growing evidence suggests that early anthropogenic influences on regional, even global, paleo-environments should be tested alongside other potential causal mechanisms.

Publication Year 2011
Title Fire and vegetation shifts in the Americas at the vanguard of Paleoindian migration
DOI 10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.12.010
Authors N. Pinter, S. Fiedel, Jon E. Keeley
Publication Type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Series Title Quaternary Science Reviews
Index ID 70003980
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse
USGS Organization Western Ecological Research Center