| California is home to prairies, savannah, chaparral, and coniferous forests—the prime
fire-adapted ecosystems in the world. Historic documentation indicates that Indigenous
Californians performed low-intensity cultural burns upon European arrival, a practice that is
corroborated by global ethnographic data from similar environments. European fire-suppression
policies put an end to these cultural burns, which has caused the Californian landscape to become
overgrown, decreasing biodiversity and setting the scene for the mega-fires witnessed over the
last two decades. Interdisciplinary, collaborative eco-archaeological research in Central
California has shown that the archaeological record has much to contribute to the study of
precontact landscape management through cultural burning. However, no archaeological studies
have been undertaken to identify cultural burning in precontact Southern California. This thesis
aims to fill that gap by first examining the ethnographic record of Indigenous fire-use around the
world to determine if cultural burns are used to construct human-environmental niche
landscapes. Secondly, it spot-lights San Diego County, California to determine if the
archaeological record suggests that similar practices were conducted before European arrival.
Pollen and phytolith data recovered from archaeological excavations throughout San Diego
County, California were analyzed to determine if paleoecological evidence correlates to the use
of cultural burns by precontact, Indigenous San Diegans. I calculated the Vegetation Response
Index for each sample and compared this to the available paleoclimatic data (KlimaszewskiPatteson et al. 2019). My results agree with the hypothesis that landscape-level cultural burns were conducted; however, there is not enough data available to definitively prove this was the
case. Previous studies have shown that the primary predictor for the use of cultural burns is a
lightning-fire-prone, and therefore fire-adapted, landscape (Coughlan et al. 2018). Every sample
from every time period identified by my research indicates that precontact, historic, and modern
San Diego County is fire-adapted. This landscape quality is a strong predictor for the use of
cultural burns. The paleoecological record is corroborated by the historically recorded use of
cultural burns by Indigenous Californians, which indicates the presence of Traditional Ecological
Knowledge (TEK). TEK refers to a collection of Indigenous environmental wisdom passed down
through generations of landscape co-evolution. Such wisdom takes time to accumulate and,
therefore, was likely present in the precontact period. The evidence for fire-adapted ecosystems
combined with the TEK of local Indigenous groups indicates that precontact Indigenous San
Diegans practiced cultural burns to manage their landscapes. The archaeological and historical
records show the antiquity of cultural burns by Indigenous Californians, which supports modern
efforts to revitalize the practice as a landscape management tool against wildfires. Today, the
recognition of TEK’s importance can bring Indigenous knowledge to the forefront of State
policymakers, benefitting California’s landscape, Indigenous communities, and everyone who
calls California home.
Keywords: cultural burns, anthropogenic burns, controlled burns, prescribed burns, traditional
ecological knowledge, precontact San Diego County archaeology, Vegetation Response Index,
Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson, Christopher T. Morgan, and Scott Mensing, historical ecology
theory |